A 60-GHz wideband L-probe patch antenna array with gain enhanced structure based on LTCC technology

A 4×4 L-probe patch antenna array using multilayer low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) technology is presented for V-band applications. The proposed antenna array is designed with high gain and stable peak gain in the wideband impedance bandwidth. A novel soft-surface structure is introduced as the gain enhanced structure to improve the gain performance. The proposed soft-surface structure comprised of metal strips and via fences is used to reduce the losses caused by severe surface waves and mutual coupling between adjacent elements to improve the radiation performance. The fabricated antenna array excluding the measurement transition has dimension of 14.4×14.4×1mm³. Good agreement is achieved between simulated and measured results. The proposed antenna array shows a wide simulated impedance of 29% from 53GHz to 71GHz for |S₁₁| <; -10dB, and the measured gain up to 17.5dBi at 60GHz, respectively.