A reconfigurable solid-state plasma dipole antenna based on SPiN diodes

Abstract

This paper proposes an innovative reconfigurable antenna concept based on the dynamic definition of metal-like conductive solid-state plasma in high-resistivity silicon which are activated by the injection of direct current. By investigating of the solid-state plasma characteristics, the metallic properties of solid-state plasma are verified. And a demonstration prototype of plasma dipole reconfigurable antenna, which comprises 36 SPiN diodes, has been designed, fabricated, and tested. The results show that the resonance frequencies at 69 GHz, 64.3 GHz and 60 GHz can be easily achieved when the antenna works in the three different states by turning on or off different sections of the antenna, selectively. In addition, it is confirmed that the proposed reconfigurable antenna has the unique characteristics compared with the conventional one.