Metamaterials and Their Application in the Performance Enhancement of Reconfigurable Antennas: A Review

Abstract

Metamaterials exhibit properties in terms of subwavelength operation or phase manipulation, among others, that can be used in a variety of applications in 5G communication systems. The future and current 5G devices demand high efficiency, high data rate, computational capabilities, cost-effectiveness, compact size, and low power consumption. This variation and advancement are possible when the antenna design is revised to operate over wideband, high gain, and multiband and has characteristics of compact size, reconfiguration, absorption, and simple ease of fabrication. The materials loaded with antennas or, in the same cases, without antennas, offer the aforementioned characteristics to bring advancement in order to facilitate users. A number of works on designing metasurfaces capable of improving bandwidth, gain efficiency, and reducing the size and cost of antennas are available in the literature for this purpose. Not only are these applications possible, but the intelligent metasurfaces are also designed to obtain reconfiguration in terms of frequency and polarization. The number of absorbers loaded with metamaterials is also designed to improve the absorption percentage used for radar applications. Thus, in this paper, the general overview of different types of metamaterials and their role in performance enhancement and application in 5G and 6G communication systems is discussed.

Bandwidth and Gain Enhancement of a CPW Antenna Using Frequency Selective Surface for UWB Applications

“…The most important parameter is the distance or gap (G) between the antenna and FSS, which establishes the constructive interface of wave reflecting back from the FSS with the waves radiating from the proposed UWB antenna. The equation given below is used to adjust the gap between the antenna and FSS [ 42 ]. 𝜑 − 2𝛽G = 2𝑛π, where 𝑛 = … −1, 0, 1 … …”

A curved single‐layer FSS design for gain improvement of a compact size CPW‐fed UWB monopole antenna

“…According to their function, FSSs may be classified into low‐pass, high‐pass, band‐stop, and bandpass filters, FSSs design typically involves creating periodic arrays of metal elements (patches and notches) printed on a substrate 30,31 . The most crucial move in the configuration process is determining the proper FSSs array arrangements, dimensions, shapes, and substrate materials 32,33 …”

Liquid crystal-enabled tunability of Yagi-Uda antenna resonant properties

“…[8][9][10][11][12][13][14] This structural dependency of their properties offers potential for designing groundbreaking devices catering to various microwave and optical applications. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Among the various types of metamaterials, perfect metamaterial absorbers (PMAs) have attracted significant attention. [26][27][28] Recent research has broadened the scope of PMAs, culminating in the design of absorbers capable of functioning across diverse regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, including microwave, millimeter-waves, terahertz, and visible regimes.…”

“… – 14 This structural dependency of their properties offers potential for designing groundbreaking devices catering to various microwave and optical applications 15 – 25 …”