MTM-Inspired Graphene-Based THz MIMO Antenna Configurations Using Characteristic Mode Analysis for 6G/IoT Applications

Abstract

6G wireless communications will be immersed in the future with different applications. It is expected to support all IoT services and satellite communications, and it is expected to support artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The THz frequency band has a vital role in 6G communication. In this study, a new graphene plasmonic two-port Terahertz (THz) MIMO antenna is analyzed by the characteristic mode theory (CMA), which gives a better insight into the physical behavior of the MIMO configurations. The proposed MIMO antenna is compact and designed on a Teflon substrate of 130 × 85 µm2. The antenna provides a wide impedance bandwidth of 0.6 THz (3.2–3.8 THz). The CMA is applied to clarify the position at which the mutual coupling gives a maximum concentrated current distribution. It is mainly used to reveal the preferable MIMO antenna configuration by the usage of the model significant and model current distribution property. To reduce the mutual coupling between the radiating elements, a complementary dumbbell-structure Metamaterial (MTM) unit cell is etched in the ground plane to block the coupling mode without any affection on the dominant mode. The preferred MIMO configuration gives high isolation of −55 dB between the radiating patches. The fundamental characteristics have been discussed in detail. The proposed MIMO design offers several attractive features such as large bandwidth of 0.6 THz, low envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of 0.000168, compact size, stable radiation, high gain of 7.23 dB, and low channel capacity loss (CCL) of 0.006. The proposed MIMO design is suitable for different applications in the THz band according to the high-performance parameters such as biomedical applications, security scanning, sensing, IoT, and 6G high-speed wireless communication systems.