A Compact Reconfigurable NRI-TL Metamaterial Phase Shifter for Antenna Applications

This communication presents a compact reconfigurable phase shifter based on negative-refractive-index transmissionline (NRI-TL) metamaterial unit cells. Two interswitchable NRI-TL metamaterial unit cells are collocated within the same board area, and can be reconfigured based on the biasing polarity of embedded p-i-n diodes to provide two discrete phase states. The p-i-n diodes are located on the shunt branches of the metamaterial line in order to reduce losses in the direct signal path. Design limitations in terms of return loss and insertion loss are discussed in relation to the two phase states. A proof-of-concept module with a size of 17.8 × 21.6 mm2is designed at 1 GHz, with measured insertion phases of -14.5° and +58.5° in the two phase states leading to a differential phase shift of 73°, while exhibiting insertion losses of 1.43 and 0.89 dB, respectively. The combined bandwidth for which the reflection coefficient in both states remains simultaneously below -10 dB is 0.46 GHz (46%), from 0.83 to 1.29 GHz.