Microwave Devices and Antennas Based on Negative-Refractive-Index Transmission-Line Metamaterials and Other Novel Technologies

Marco A. Antoniades

The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Electromagnetics)

Abstract:

The recent emergence of a new class of materials that have electromagnetic properties not typically found in nature, known as "metamaterials", has generated significant interest within the engineering and physics communities. Specifically, metamaterials that exhibit a negative index of refraction have received considerable attention for their potential to create novel electromagnetic structures, such as antennas and RF/microwave devices, which exhibit new phenomena and/or demonstrate superior qualities compared to their conventional counterparts

This presentation will focus on the transmission-line (TL) approach to synthesizing negative-refractive-index (NRI) metamaterials, which relies on loading a conventional microwave transmission line with lumped-element series capacitors and shunt inductors. This enables the creation of materials with low losses, which exhibit a negative refractive index over a large bandwidth. Additionally, the compact, broadband and planar nature of the NRI-TL metamaterials allows them to be easily integrated with other circuits and devices, while significantly improving key performance characteristics. Various metamaterial-based antennas and devices will be presented, including active and passive realizations of components typically found in RF front-end systems. Particular emphasis will be placed on compact and broadband metamaterial antennas for use in next-generation wireless communication systems, including emerging multi-antenna multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) systems for mobile devices.

 

Biography:

Marco A. Antoniades received the B.A.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 2001, and the M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto, ON, Canada, in 2003 and 2009, respectively.

From 1997 to 2001, he worked for various telecom/engineering companies, including Spacebridge, Cisco, Honeywell, Ericsson, The Cyprus Telecommunications Authority and Westinghouse, as part of the work-experience program at the University of Waterloo. From 2001 to 2009, he was a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto, where he contributed to the design and teaching of undergraduate courses relating to electromagnetics. During the same period, he was a research assistant at the University of Toronto, where he was involved in the development of microwave devices and antennas basedon negative-refractive-index transmission-line (NRI-TL) metamaterials. He has coauthored a book chapter titled Antenna Applications of Negative Refractive Index Transmission-Line (NRI-TL) Metamaterials that appears in the Modern Antenna Handbook, edited by Prof. C.A. Balanis (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2008). Currently,  he is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, pursuing his research interests in passive and active antenna design, RF/microwave devices, and negative-refractive-index metamaterials forbroadband wireless communications and radio-frequency identification. Dr. Antoniades received the Hellenic Canadian Federation of Ontario Academic Excellence Award in 2003, and the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Graduate Scholarship from the University of Toronto in 2003/04 and 2004/05. Additionally, he received the first prize in the Student Paper Competition at the 2006 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) International Symposium. In 2009, he was the recipient of the Ontario Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Ministry of Research and Innovation of Ontario.