Spoof Plasmonic Waveguide-Fed 2-D Antenna Array With Improved Efficiency

Spoof planar plasmonic waveguides (SPPWs) are a new kind of low-loss surface-wave transmission line. In this letter, a two-dimensional (2-D) antenna array is excited by a one-dimensional (1-D) SPPW in a simple way, and the achievable array size is determined by the mode size of the SPPW. The proposed 4 × 4 patch array features an average gain of 19.6 dBi in the operating frequency band. Meanwhile, the antenna array is designed and fabricated in microwave frequency band, and the measured results validate the simulated high efficiency of the proposed array. Moreover, since the mode size of the SPPW can be flexibly designed, the proposed idea can be further extended into larger 2-D arrays with more elements.