Internal compact dual-band printed loop antenna for mobile phone application

A novel dual-band printed loop antenna very promising for application in mobile phones as an internal antenna is presented. The antenna comprises an outer loop strip and an inner inverted-L strip connected to and enclosed by the outer loop strip. The antenna occupies a compact area of 15 x 50 mm(2) only, yet generating three resonant modes to form two wide bands at about 900 and 1800 MHz for the Global System for Mobile Communication/Digital Communication System operation. Detailed design considerations of the three excited modes are described in the paper. When a shielding metal case is placed close to the antenna, small effects on the antenna's impedance matching are seen, allowing compact integration of the antenna with nearby conducting elements or electronic components. The antenna is also found to result in small excited surface current distributions on the system ground plane of the mobile phone. This behavior is expected to lead to reduced user's hand effects on the radiation efficiency of the antenna.