Effective Permeability and Miniaturization Estimation of Ferrite-loaded Microstrip Patch Antenna

Miniaturization of a microstrip patch antenna using composite nanosized ferrite material is proposed in this paper. Detailed simulations were performed to analyze the effect of increase in relative permeability of substrate material on physical size and efficiency of a microstrip antenna. An analytical expression for estimation of the effective relative permeability is established here on the basis of the detailed simulation. Composite nano ferrite (Mn0.5Zn0.35Co0.15Fe2O4 + SrFe12O19) with an average crystallite size of 72 nm was synthesized and characterized for electromagnetic properties. The substrate material was prepared by the co-precipitation method. Matching values of complex permittivity (epsilon* = 4.1-0.1j) and complex permeability (mu* = 3.72-0.28j) up to 1 GHz were obtained from the electromagnetic characterization. Measurement of the resonant frequency of the fabricated antenna validates the derived expression of effective relative permeability. It reduces the error in calculation of resonant frequency from 10% to 1%. Simulation and measurement results also confirm that an antenna fabricated with the above parameters can reduce the patch size by almost 44% and increases -10 dB reflection loss bandwidth over a pure dielectric FR4 substrate. Therefore, we propose here an analytical expression for estimation of effective relative permeability and Mn0.5Zn0.35Co0.15Fe2O4 + SrFe12O19 composite nano ferrites as suitable candidate for a high-bandwidth miniaturized antenna in the microwave frequency range.