Electronically controlled beam steering leaky wave antenna in nematic liquid crystal technology

摘要

A novel nematic liquid crystal (LC) technology-based electronically controlled leaky wave antenna (LWA) with microstrip-waveguide conversion working mechanism and wide beam steering range is presented in this article. The LWA is a combination of an inverted microstrip structure and rectangular waveguide. According to the characteristics of LC materials in microwave band, a broadband microstrip-waveguide conversion device is proposed. The gradient slot leaky wave structure is combined with the microstrip-waveguide conversion device to form an electronically controlled LWA with continuous tunable beam. Simulation and experiment results show that the LWA proposed in this article has a 32 beam scanning range at 12 GHz and good impedance matching and stable gain, suggesting the great potential of nematic LC materials for extensive applications in microwave band in the future.