Effects of intrinsic radiation Q on mismatch factor of three types of small antennas: single-resonance, gradual-transition and cascaded-resonance types

Abstract

Resonators are traditionally characterised by their quality factor Q, which is inversely proportional to the relative bandwidth. Small antennas are often resonant, so they can be characterised by a Q, except for the fact that the correct quality measure of an antenna is the inverse Q, that is the relative bandwidth, rather than Q. Still, it has become common to study fundamental size limitations of small antennas in terms of a so-called radiation Q (or antenna Q). This study explains how this intrinsic radiation Q relates to: (i) the bandwidth–efficiency product of small single-resonance-type antennas, (ii) the gradual cut-off of spherical waves for wideband gradual-transition-type small antennas and (iii) the number of resonances needed to cover a certain frequency band for wideband cascaded-resonance-type small antennas. The study also introduces one intrinsic radiation Q for basic single TE and TM spherical mode sources, and another for combined TE and TM sources.