Study of monopole plasma antenna using fluorescent tube in wireless transmission experiments

This paper presents a basic study on plasma monopole antenna using a single fluorescent tube and reviews the antenna performance as a transmitter and receiver. In this study, a commercially available fluorescent tube, with 0.31 m length and 0.13 m of diameter is used as the plasma antenna. When the gas inside the tube is sufficiently ionized into plasma state, it becomes conductive and allows radio frequency signals to be transmitted or received. Measurements indicated that the constructed plasma antenna yielded return loss over 10 dB from 805 MHz to 885 MHz frequency band. The antenna´s capability to operate as either a transmitter or receiver in the particular frequency band was verified through a series of wireless transmission experiments.