Millimeter-wave low-loss on-chip metamaterial for 5G communication based on non-periodic composite right-/left-handed transmission line

Abstract

This Letter reports a millimeter-wave low-loss on-chip metamaterial based on a concept of a non-periodic composite right-/left-handed (CRLH) transmission line (TL). Compared with a classic periodic unit cell, a non-periodic CRLH TL is proposed to obtain higher transmittance and better reflectivity. First, based on the CRLH TL theory, the LC values of the periodic transmission line were calculated. Second, Ti factors were derived using Chebyshev low-pass filter prototypes and the bandpass transformation theory. Third, these values were then used to calculate the factors of the non-periodic structure, which was eventually implemented using lumped elements. By analyzing the dispersion property, the proposed non-periodic CRLH metamaterial features both right-handed (forward wave) and left-handed (backward wave) propagating modes, which accounts for its wide bandwidth. For demonstration, a gallium arsenide-based integrated passive device process is adopted. As its main advantages, the fabricated metamaterial shows a high and flat transmission with minimum insertion loss of 0.68 dB at 30.2 GHz, and a low reflectivity better than −10 dB from 14 to 51 GHz of which the fraction bandwidth is over 120%.