A Broadband Dual-Mode Monopole Antenna Using NRI-TL Metamaterial Loading

A printed monopole antenna is proposed which uses negative-refractive-index transmission-line (NRI-TL) metamaterial loading in order to achieve a broadband dual-mode operation. The metamaterial-loaded monopole supports a predominately even-mode current at 5.5 GHz, which allows the antenna to be modeled as a short folded monopole. Around 3.55 GHz, the metamaterial-loaded monopole acts as a balun for the ground plane currents, therefore rendering the entire top edge of the ground plane as the main radiating element. This in turn radiates a dipolar mode that is orthogonal to the folded-monopole mode at 5.5 GHz. By virtue of the orthogonality between the two radiating modes, the metamaterial antenna exhibits a return-loss characteristic with a dual resonance, and therefore a very wide measured impedance bandwidth of 4.06 GHz. The total size of the antenna is only 22 times 30 mm, and the measured efficiency is on the order of 90% at both 3.55 and 5.5 GHz.