For many years, planar metallic microwave structures such as microstrip patch antennas have been extensively used in telecommunications and sensor devices. The large popularity of the planar metallic microwave components is due to this fact that it is inexpensive to manufacture using modern printed-circuit technology. However, the efficiency of these elements is not high, especially at millimetre-wave frequencies. On the other hand, conventional dielectric microwave elements such as dielectric resonator antennas are three dimensional structures which are mostly fabricated from hard ceramics. The dielectric components offer several appealing features and performance advantages over their metallic counterparts (e.g., higher efficiency and bandwidth, miniaturized structure). However, three-dimensional ceramic-based structures involve a more complex and costly fabrication process which may restrict the wide use of dielectric antennas in wireless applications.
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