Wide-Angle Scanning All-Metal Magnetoelectric Dipole Phased Array With Low Scanning Loss

Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed ME dipole antenna.</p> Fig. 1. Configuration of the proposed ME dipole antenna. </abstract> <abstract> <p>In this letter, an all-metal 3D-printed wide-angle scanning phased array (PA) with low scanning loss is proposed. An all-metal magnetoelectric (ME) dipole antenna is first designed, where the gap between the supporting walls operates as the magnetic current source, and the wedge-shaped dipole works as the electric current source. Consequently, the ME dipole antenna obtains miniaturized footprint and broad beamwidth simultaneously. Furthermore, a 1 &#x00D7; 8 linear PA is developed. The element spacing is adjusted as 0.42&#x03BB;0 (&#x03BB;0 refers to free-space wavelength at center frequency) by interconnecting adjacent supporting walls and wedge-shaped dipoles to reduce scanning loss of the array. A prototype is fabricated using selective laser melting (SLM) printing technology. The measured results indicate that the proposed PA achieves a -10 dB impedance bandwidth of 23.7-26.4 GHz. A beam scanning ranging from -67&#x00B0; to &#x002B;67&#x00B0; is obtained while the scanning loss and sidelobe level remain below 0.8 dB and -8 dB, respectively. Moreover, the all-metal structure ensures a radiation efficiency as high as 90&#x0025;. Therefore, the proposed PA can be a promising candidate for millimeter-Wave (mm-Wave) wireless systems. IEEE