Miniaturized leaky-wave antenna with backward-to-forward beam scanning and suppressed open stop-band based on substrate-integrated plasmonic waveguide

This work presents a theoretical design and experimental demonstration of a novel miniaturized leaky-wave antenna (LWA) using composite waveguide based on substrate-integrated plasmonic waveguide (SIPW). The SIPW is designed by embedding hybrid dual spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) structure into a three-layer substrate integrated waveguide (SIW). Due to the slow-wave effect of SIPW, the proposed miniaturized composite waveguide forms slowed phase velocity and decreased lower cutoff frequency. To excite backward-to-forward beam scanning mode and suppress the open stop-band, an asymmetric sinusoidal modulated structure is introduced to the surface of the composite waveguide. The experimental results indicate that the proposed SIPW-based LWA can achieve continuous beam scanning from the backward to the forward direction within the bandwidth of 10.6-13.7 GHz, passing through the broadside at 11.6 GHz.