Ka-band beam-scanning leaky-wave antenna fed by reconfigurable spoof surface plasmon polaritons

A leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on reconfigurable spoof surface plasmon polari-tons (SSPP) is proposed for beam scanning in the Ka band, which consists of a reconfigurable SSPP waveguide and a periodic array of metal rectangular split rings. Both numerical simula-tions and experimental measurements show that the reconfigurable SSPP-fed LWA has good performance in the frequency range from 25 to 30 GHz. Specifically, as the bias voltage changes from 0 to 15 V, we can achieve the maximum sweep range of 24 degrees at a single frequency and 59 degrees at multiple frequency points, respectively. Owing to the wide-angle beam-steering feature, as well as the field confinement and wavelength compression properties derived from the SSPP architecture, the proposed SSPP-fed LWA possesses great potential applications in the compact and miniaturized devices and systems of the Ka band.(c) 2023 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement