Laure Huitema

Compact and Multiband Dielectric Resonator Antenna With Pattern Diversity for Multistandard Mobile Handheld Devices

A compact multiband antenna system using a dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is presented in this paper. Designed to be integrated in a tablet, it is not only heavily miniaturized (λ0/15×λ0/38×λ0/94 at 800 MHz), but also able to cover three frequency bands for different wireless applications (DVB-H, WiFi and WiMAX). Since a reconfigurable radiation pattern can result in an improved quality and reliability of wireless links, two DRAs have been integrated to implement this feature on the three frequency bands. These improvements are demonstrated by the presentation of the correlation coefficient and the effective diversity gain, both measured in a reverberation chamber. The experimental measurements are in very good agreement with the simulated ones. Good overall performances are obtained, and the requirements of all three applications are perfectly met. Moreover, the antenna operative frequencies are independent of the ground plane dimensions, making this system a very good candidate for all kinds of mobile devices.

Frequency Tunable Antenna Using a Magneto-Dielectric Material for DVB-H Application

This paper presents an ultracompact antenna design suited for digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H) reception devices. The DVB-H frequency band is ranging from 4 70 to 862 MHz and divided in 49 channels of 8 MHz. Designed to be integrated in a tablet, it is not only heavily miniaturized (λ0 /49 × λ0/71 ×λ0/160 at 470 MHz), but also able to cover each channel thanks to the use of a magneto-dielectric material. The advantage of using such a material is studied and described in this paper. Moreover, the operating frequency is continuously tuned over the whole DVB-H band by the integration of a varactor diode. This varactor diode has been characterized and modeled to properly cosimulate its behavior within the antenna. Limitations in terms of accepted power by the diode are emphasizing. Finally, the antenna design, including both magneto-dielectric material and varactor diode is integrated in the DVB-H receiver device. Measurement performances are presented and discussed.

Ultrawideband Dielectric Resonator Antenna for DVB-H and GSM Applications

This letter presents a novel design of compact dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) that is dedicated to ultrawideband applications such as digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H). The dimensions of the radiation element are lambda0/7 times lambda0/13 times lambda0/28 at 466 MHz. A miniaturization technique has been used in order to reduce the antenna size, and a parametric analysis of the antenna is performed. The measured results agree well with the simulated ones. The proposed antenna offers a bandwidth of 70% around 700 MHz for -8 dB impedance matching bandwidth definition and covers the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) IV, V and Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) bands.

Impedance and Radiation Measurement Methodology for Ultra Miniature Antennas

This paper presents new measurement methodologies for ultra-miniature antennas. A first one is dedicated to the impedance measurement and the second one to the radiation measurement. Both methods are detailed focusing on an ultra-compact antenna design at 2.4 GHz, whose electrical dimensions, including the ground plane, are λ0/25×λ0/25×λ0/62.5. Given the very small antenna size compared to the wavelength, measurements by means of conventional coaxial cable can affect the characterization results. The issues related to the use of a feeding coaxial cable in both simulation and prototype measurements are first discussed. Then, specific methods to deduce the isolated antenna properties are proposed. Both methodologies rely on the use of electromagnetic simulation to compensate perturbations introduced by the measuring device.

Ultra-High Tunability of

We report the high-frequency electrical characterization of Ba(2/3)Sr(1/3)TiO3 (BST) thin films exhibiting a very high dielectric tunability with low losses at 2.45 GHz under very low applied electrical fields. BST layers were integrated in out-of-plane Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) devices with optimized Ir/MgO(100) bottom electrodes. The high frequency properties of BST films with thicknesses of 200 nm, 450 nm and 1450 nm were thoroughly investigated in the 100 MHz-10 GHz domain and exhibit extremely high capacitance tuning abilities of 82%, 81% and 70% respectively, under applied voltages as low as 10 V. MIM devices responses show the onset of acoustic resonances associated with the BST electrostrictive behavior under an electric field. By combining high tunability with low resistive losses under low applied voltages, these devices are opening promising avenues for their integration in high-performance tunable devices in the microwave domain and particularly at 2.45 GHz, corresponding to the widely used ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) frequency band.

\text{Ba}_{(2/3)}\text{Sr}_{(1/3)}\text{TiO}_{3}

We report the concept of a frequency tunable antenna device operating in the millimeter wave frequency domain. The ability of the antenna to switch between two frequency states is achieved by the monolithic integration of a metal-insulator transition material (vanadium dioxide, VO2). The VO2 material is an insulator at room temperature but can be driven in a high conductivity metallic state when it is electrically activated using a continuous (DC) voltage. The antenna design is based on a slot antenna excited by a microstrip line having a length that can be conveniently varied using a VO2-based switch. Following the high-frequency VO2 material characterization, we present its monolithic integration in the device prototype along with the comparison between the measured and the simulated performances of the agile antenna. Thus, depending on the VO2 material state, the antenna device can be conveniently switched between 33 and 37 GHz operating frequency bands presenting stable radiation patterns with 5.28 dB...

-Based Capacitors Under Low Electric Fields

The existence of domain wall motion at microwave frequencies and its contribution to the ferroelectric complex permittivity is shown by evaluating the dielectric properties of BaSrTiO 3 (BST) thin films as a function of the incident power. Even at low AC field amplitudes, the presence of the domain walls and the correlated motions (vibration and jumps) result in sensitivity of the dielectric properties to the incident field amplitude. Although the contribution of domain wall motion to the real part of the permittivity is not preponderant (less than 10 %), it represents more than 50 % of the materials global dielectric losses. This illustrates the importance to consider domain wall motion even in the microwave frequency region and the necessity to take into account the applied AC field amplitude (and thus the incident power) when characterizing ferroelectric materials. The present study has been realized on BST thin films, elaborated by pulsed laser deposition on MgO/Ir substrates.

Highly integrated VO2-based tunable antenna for millimeter-wave applications

Domain wall motions in ferroelectrics participate to the materials complex permittiv-ity and are responsible for their sensitivity of the dielectric properties to the driving electric field and thus to the incident power at microwave frequencies. In the present study, the dependence of the permittivity, the dielectric losses and the tunability of Ba 2/3 Sr 1/3 TiO 3 (BST) thin films on the incident power and on the bias fields is examined at a frequency of 500 MHz. While, the domain wall motion participates only slightly to the permittivity (< 5 %), it strongly influences the losses due to its very dissipative behavior. As a consequence, the Figure of Merit (FoM , ratio between tunability and dielectric losses) of the material depends on the applied microwave power. In the present study, a decrease of the FoM from 29 to 21 is observed for an incident power varying from −20 dBm to 5 dBm. When characterizing ferroelectric materials, the incident power has to be considered; moreover, domain wall motion effects should be limited in order to achieve a high FoM and less power sensitivity.

Domain wall motions in BST ferroelectric thin films in the microwave frequency range

One of the most peculiar characteristics of the insulator-to-metal transition (MIT) in vanadium dioxide (VO2) material is its broadband response, manifested by drastic electrical and dielectric properties changes between the insulator and metallic states on a very large frequency spectrum. We are presenting the characterization of the MIT in VO2 films over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum (75-110GHz, 0.1-1.4THz) and illustrate the materials’ capabilities for manipulating the electromagnetic radiation in the millimeter-waves and THz domains. We demonstrate the possibility of realizing tunable THz devices by introducing this phase transition material as localized patterns in the structure of THz planar metamaterials. We designed, simulated and fabricated tunable VO2-based THz metamaterials devices which show significant variations in their THz transmission under the effect of thermal stimuli but also by applying an electrical voltage across the devices.

Effect of the incident power on permittivity, losses and tunability of BaSrTiO 3 thin films in the microwave frequency range

We report the monolithic integration of a metal-insulator material (vanadium dioxide, VO2) for realizing a frequency tunable antenna operating around 30 GHz. The design of the device is based on a slot antenna excited by a microstrip line having a length that can be conveniently varied using a VO2-based switch. Compared to existing commercial solutions, the proposed switches show better electrical properties at high frequencies, with low losses (<;1 dB) and high isolation (>20 dB) up to 40 GHz. The simulation shows that the antenna can be tunable around 30 GHz, with discrete frequency operation while being highly integrated.