Enhancing isolation of antenna arrays by simultaneously blocking and guiding magnetic field lines using magnetic metamaterials

In this article, we propose to enhance the isolation of antenna arrays by manipulating the near-field magnetic coupling between adjacent antennas using magnetic metamaterials (MMs). Due to the artificially designed negative or large permeability, MMs can concentrate or block the magnetic field lines where they are located, which allows us to tune the near-field magnetic coupling strengths between antennas. MMs can play a two-fold role in enhancing antenna isolation. On one hand, the magnetic fields can be blocked in gaps between adjacent antennas using MMs with negative permeability; on the other hand, the magnetic fields can be pulled towards the borders of the antenna array using MMs with large permeability. As an example, we demonstrated a four-element patch antenna array with split-ring resonators (SRR) integrated in the substrate. The measured results show that the isolation can be enhanced by more than 10 dB with the integration of SRRs, even if the gap between antennas is only about 0.082λ. This work provides an effective alternative to the design of high-isolation antenna arrays.