Characterization of a volumetric metamaterial realization of an artificial magnetic conductor for antenna applications

The design, fabrication and measurement of a volumetric metamaterial realization of an artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) is presented. In contrast to most current realizations of AMCs, such as the mushroom and the uniplanar compact photonic bandgap surfaces, the present design has no perfect electric conductor ground plane. The perfect magnetic conductor properties were designed with capacitively loaded loops for X band operation at 10 GHz. Very good agreement between the numerical and experimental scattering results was achieved. The performance of a dipole antenna radiating in the presence of this volumetric metamaterial AMC is quantified numerically. Resonant interactions of the antenna and metamaterial structure lead to a significant enhancement of the radiated field amplitudes and isolation measured as the front-to-back ratio.