In this paper, a high-gain nested dielectric resonator rectenna operating at 5.8 GHz based on the magneto-electric dipole theory is proposed. A nested structure is employed to achieve the required resonant frequency in a small dimension. And the higher order HE21δ mode of the dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is excited by a vertical coaxial probe feeding, which is equated to a horizontal array of crossed magnetic dipoles, thus enhancing the gain. Then, two vertical metal posts are embedded inside the DRA, serving as electric dipoles to form a magneto-electric dipole array in conjunction with the magnetic dipoles, which suppress the excessive lobes of the DRA in HE21δ mode and hence enhance the maximum gain of the DRA to 9.8 dBi. A rectifier circuit with harmonic suppression is designed. By adding a short-circuit microstrip transmission line to the rectifier circuit, the second harmonic with infinite impedance is suppressed and reflected back to the diode for secondary rectification. The designed rectifier circuit is connected to the DRA to form a rectenna. The test result shows that the rectenna obtains a peak conversion efficiency of 43.9 % and an output voltage of 1.95 V at 5.8 GHz, which is suitable for wireless energy harvesting.
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