3D-Printed Quasi-Cylindrical Bragg Reflector to Boost the Gain and Directivity of cm- and mm-Wave Antennas

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 21; no. 23; p. 8014
• Main Authors: Ribeiro, Jéssica A. P., Filgueiras, Hugo R. D., Cerqueira Sodré Junior, Arismar, Beltrán-Mejía, Felipe, Mejía-Salazar, Jorge Ricardo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 30.11.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Antenna design; Antenna radiation patterns; Antennas; Aperture; Bragg reflectors; Communication; Design; diffraction; Directivity; Electromagnetism; gain; Millimeter waves; multilayer structures; Radiation; Satellite communications
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s21238014

We demonstrate a concept for a large enhancement of the directivity and gain of readily available cm- and mm-wave antennas, i.e., without altering any property of the antenna design. Our concept exploits the high reflectivity of a Bragg reflector composed of three bilayers made of transparent materials. The cavity has a triangular aperture in order to resemble the idea of a horn-like, highly directive antenna. Importantly, we report gain enhancements of more than 400% in relation to the gain of the antenna without the Bragg structure, accompanied by a highly directive radiation pattern. The proposed structure is cost-effective and easy to fabricate with 3D-printing. Our results are presented for frequencies within the conventional WiFi frequencies, based on IEEE 802.11 standards, thus, enabling easily implementation by non-experts and needing only to be placed around the antenna to improve the directivity and gain of the signal.