642 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 45, NO.

4, APRIL 1997

Study of Various Shapes of the Coupling

Slot in CPW-Fed Microstrip Antennas
Laurent Giauffret, Jean-Marc Laheurte, and A. Papiernik

Abstract— A numerical modeling based on the solution of is based on two coupled integral equations solved by the
coupled integral equations is used for the characterization of method of moments (MoM). The first integral equation is
CPW-fed aperture-coupled microstrip antennas. Various shapes derived from the magnetic field continuity in the apertures
of excitation slots, such as open stubs, slot loops, and capacitively
and inductively coupled slots, are investigated in terms of return (exciting slot CPW line stub) at the ground-plane level.
loss and front-to-back radiated power ratio. It is shown that a In the first equation, the unknown is the magnetic current
centered CPW open stub gives a minimum of back radiation while distribution in the apertures. The second integral is based on
allowing for easy matching. The slot-loop excitation seems to be the tangential continuity of the electric field at the patch level.
a convenient feeding mechanism that also allows the insertion of
active devices.
In the second integral equation, the unknown is the electric
current distribution on the patch. The fields are expressed in
Index Terms— Microstrip antennas. terms of vector and scalar potentials of electric and magnetic
types. The potentials are expressed as Sommerfeld integrals
I. INTRODUCTION using the appropriate Green’s functions. The surface currents
are expanded into rooftop basis functions. The weight of every
N UMEROUS advantages have been obtained by feeding a
radiating element through an aperture cut into its ground
plane: no soldering points, weak parasitic radiation, greater
basis function is obtained by applying the Galerkin method and
solving the resulting MoM matrix equation [8]. The numerical
radiation pattern symmetry, and convenient impedance match- excitation of the odd mode in the CPW line is provided by
ing owing to the large number of feed parameters. To date, the two magnetic charges located in both slot-lines. The reflection
primary source of an aperture-coupled microstrip antenna has coefficient is calculated from the study of the standing wave
usually been a microstrip line located below the ground plane in the line. The radiation patterns are determined from the
[1], [2]. Recently, the coplanar waveguide (CPW) appeared as knowledge of the magnetic and electric current distributions.
an alternative solution for feeding microstrip antennas [3]–[5].
In CPW-fed aperture-coupled microstrip antennas (CPWFA’s), III. STUDY OF VARIOUS SHAPES OF SLOT EXCITATION
the metallic plane is used both as a conducting plane for
Throughout this work, we only consider square patches
the CPW line and a reflector plane for the radiating element
excited by centered straight slots or centered square slot loops.
(Fig. 1). By facilitating parallel and series connection of both
The same square patch (20 mm 20 mm) is used in all the
active and passive components, CPW lines provide convenient
antennas described below, as well as the same dimensions
feeding for the fabrication of active antennas. Several shapes
of the CPW lines and the same substrate (Fig. 1). The line
of the excitation slot have already been proposed by different
dimensions are calculated to obtain a 50- characteristic
authors: capacitively and inductively coupled slots [3], open
impedance. The reference plane is taken at the slot level. As
stubs [4], small slot rings [5], and slot loops [6]. Unfortunately,
these antennas are all symmetrical with respect to the feeding
these various shapes of slot excitation have not been rigorously
compared and investigated yet. This paper presents the results CPW line, no CPW even mode can propagate in the CPW
of an investigation realized with the help of a numerical line. This simplifies both the theoretical study, where only
modeling of CPWFA’s. For each type of excitation, the quality the propagation of the CPW odd mode is to be considered,
of the coupling is evaluated by calculating the front-to-back and the measurements, which do not require bond wires
radiated power ratio. Comparison between these different along the feeding line to achieve ground equalization. The
excitation shapes leads to general conclusions on the use of loaded resonant frequency of the antenna is defined from the
either coupling slot with emphasis on back scattering. minimum of voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR). The natural
(unloaded) resonant frequency is defined from the resonance
II. THEORETICAL MODELING OF CPW-FED of the antenna without any influence of the feed network.
APERTURE-COUPLED MICROSTRIP ANTENNA The front-to-back (F/B) radiated power ratio is defined as
A numerical model of CPWFA using the integral equation the ratio between the maximum co-pol power radiated in the
technique has been realized and validated [7]. This model main direction (i.e., on the patch side) to the maximum co-pol
power radiated in the back direction (i.e., on the slot side). The
Manuscript received November 20, 1995; revised April 26, 1996. F/B is used to describe the quality of the coupling between the
The authors are with the Laboratoire d’Electronique, Antennes et excitation slot and the patch, namely, how efficient the transfer
Télécommunications, Université de Nice, Sophia Antipolis, CNRS URA
1400, Valbonne 06560, France. of power is from the slot to the patch. A low F/B means that
Publisher Item Identifier S 0018-926X(97)02498-8. a significant part of the power provided by the slot is radiated
0018–926X/97$10.00  1997 IEEE

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on January 05,2021 at 10:07:32 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 GIAUFFRET et al.: STUDY OF COUPLING SLOT IN CPW-FED MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS 643

(a) (b)
Fig. 1. (a) Inductively coupled and (b) capacitively coupled CPWFA’s (W = 4 4 mm,
: G = 0:2 mm, and Ws = 1 mm).

directly to the back side of the antenna instead of exciting the

patch antenna.

A. Excitation by Inductively and Capacitively Coupled Slots

The inner conductor of a CPW line may be connected to
the straight coupling slot in an inductive or capacitive way
[3]. The inductive coupling corresponds to a short-circuited
slot [Fig. 1(a)] while the capacitive coupling corresponds to
an open-circuited excitation slot [Fig. 1(b)]. In this chapter,
we investigate theoretically the influence of the slot length on
both types of feedings. The limiting case of the excitation by
an open-circuited stub is obtained for a zero length of the slot
arms in the capacitive coupling.
The effect of the slot length on the input impedance is
shown in Fig. 2 for several slot lengths of inductively coupled
antennas. In a like manner of aperture-coupled antennas fed
by microstrip lines [2], the impedance locus strongly depends
on the slot length that tunes the coupling strength between the
Fig. 2. CPWFA’s input impedance for different lengths of the inductively
excitation slot and the patch. In Fig. 3, the return loss is coupled slot.
represented in the neighborhood of the resonant frequency. In
the same figure, the F/B is represented versus the frequency. slot excitations. Fig. 5 yields similar conclusions to Fig. 3: an
It can be observed that the F/B variation does not depend on increase of the slot length shifts the loaded resonant frequency
the slot length. The F/B is maximum at 4.67 GHz, which toward the lowest frequencies where the F/B is smaller. Hence,
is the natural (unloaded) resonant frequency of the patch the limiting case of an open stub excitation ( mm)
antenna obtained by using a cavity model [9]. Fig. 3 shows allows an optimal matching and maximum F/B simultaneously.
that an increase of the slot length shifts the loaded resonant The loaded resonant frequency obtained with an open-stub
frequency (first identical to the natural resonance frequency of excitation is 4.63 GHz. As the loaded resonant frequency
the patch antenna) toward the lowest frequencies where the provided by an open-stub excitation is close to the natural
F/B is smaller. (unloaded) resonant frequency of the patch, we conclude that
The main difference between inductively and capacitively the influence of the open stub on the antenna’s resonance is
coupled antennas clearly appears in Fig. 4. Unlike inductively very small because of its short resonating length.
coupled antennas that are equivalent to strongly coupled The good match shown in Fig. 4 for the open-stub excitation
parallel RLC resonators, the electrical model of capacitively has been obtained with an optimized dimension of the
coupled antennas seems to reduce to a series RLC circuit with open stub. As is also the width of the CPW
a slowly varying real part. Fig. 4 shows that an increasing line [Fig. 1(b)], a 50- characteristic impedance has been
slot length has a small effect on the impedance locus, but simultaneously obtained by tuning with a proper
decreases the loaded resonant frequency. As a result, does ratio.
not significantly depend on the slot length: a similar good In Fig. 6, experimental data obtained for a capacitively
matching ( 25 dB) is observed for open stub and straight coupled antennas with mm (open stub) are given

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on January 05,2021 at 10:07:32 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 644 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 45, NO. 4, APRIL 1997

Fig. 3. Return loss and F/B versus frequency for different slot lengths in the Fig. 5. Return loss and F/B versus frequency for different slot lengths in the
inductively coupled CPWFA. capacitively coupled CPWFA.

Fig. 6. Experimental return loss and F/B versus frequency for open-stub
excitation (ls= 4:8 mm).
Fig. 4. CPWFA’s input impedance for different lengths of the capacitively
coupled slot.
lengthening necessarily involves a worse back scattering, but
similar radiation characteristics in the main direction. This can
for F/B and . The experimental back-radiation has been
be explained as follows: when the loaded resonant frequency
estimated by putting flat absorbers (Eccosorb AN-74, Emer-
is far from the natural (unloaded) resonant frequency of
son, and Cuming) along the substrate edges and in the front
the patch, the stored energy in the matching circuit (CPW
direction to avoid as much scattering and fading as possible.
excitation slot) is larger. Therefore, the ratio of radiated power
The ground planes was 15 cm 15 cm and the space between
by the patch to the power radiated by the matching circuit is
the front absorber and the patch was 3 cm. Measurements
smaller. As a consequence, the antenna’s performances can
were performed in an anechoı̈c chamber. Fig. 6 shows a good
be affected. This remark could be extended to any series stub
agreement with the results obtained in Fig. 5; the measured
added to the excitation slot for a matching improvement.
resonant frequency (4.58 GHz) is slightly below the theoretical
one (4.63 GHz). This 1% error is attributed to the MoM
modeling. In spite of the difficulty in realizing a correct B. Square Slot-Loop Excitation
measurement of back radiation, the theoretical and measured In this section, we investigate a slot loop used as the
F/B curves are similar on the overall band. excitation aperture for a CPWFA. The simplification brought
For all the antennas described in Figs. 2 and 4 and for by the slot loop to the biasing circuitry of active antennas
the resonant frequency, the measured gain is 7.6 dB (with has been described in [6]. As the bias network must provide
respect to isotropic) and the highest level of cross polarization the energy to the active device without disturbing the RF
is 22 dB. In conclusion, for both types of coupling, any circuit, its realization can be quite cumbersome and delicate.
decrease of the antenna’s loaded resonant frequency by a slot For instance, in oscillating slot antennas, a metal-insulator-

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on January 05,2021 at 10:07:32 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 GIAUFFRET et al.: STUDY OF COUPLING SLOT IN CPW-FED MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS 645

Fig. 9. CPWFA’s input impedance for different sizes of the square slot-loop
excitation.

Fig. 7. Theoretical and experimental antenna’s input impedance for a square

slot-loop excitation.

(a) (b)
Fig. 8. (a) Theoretical magnetic current distribution in the slots. (b) Electric
current distribution on the patch.

metal capacitor must be fabricated for isolating bias voltages

[10]. On the other hand, a slot loop can be used both as the
Fig. 10. Return loss and F/B versus frequency for different sizes of square
antenna’s excitation and the isolation for dc bias. In [6], the slot-loops excitation.
region inside the slot loop is connected to the drain of a FET
transistor with a dc voltage applied to the center of the metallic
region. A zero potential is supplied to the region outside the of the antenna (4.32 GHz) remain below 15 dB in both
loop, allowing the bias of the gate and the source, and the planes, we conclude that the coupling mechanism between
dc isolation automatically results from the use of the slot the loop and the patch is correct and that the first radiating
loop. An open stub obviously presents the same dc isolation mode of the patch is properly excited. The plotting of the
properties as the slot loop, but experimental results have shown electric current distribution on the patch [Fig. 8(b)] confirms
that the field distribution in the stub are strongly disturbed by the correct excitation of the TM mode.
the bondwire which supplies the dc bias. In a slot loop, this The effect of the size of the square loop on the input
field disturbance no longer exists provided that the bondwire impedance of a CPWFA is shown in Fig. 9 for several loop
is connected in the center of the loop, i.e., far from the slots. dimensions. It appears that an increasing size of the slot loop
In Fig. 7, a comparison between theoretical and experi- produces an inductive rotation of the locii in the Smith chart.
mental results is presented for a square slot-loop excitation. Unlike CPW-fed antennas excited with straight slots (Figs. 3
The gap around the loop has not been left constant on the and 5), it may be observed in Fig. 10 that both the return
top and bottom edges (0.2 mm and 1 mm) because of the loss and the front-to-back radiated power ratio depend on the
constraints on the cells size imposed by the line width (0.2 slot dimensions. The back radiation increases strongly with
mm). A constant slot width would have led to an excessive the loop size, which means that the antenna is poorly excited
size of the MoM matrix. The agreement between the numerical for large dimensions of the loop. For example, an increase of
modeling and the measurements is very good. As the measured the length of the loop edges from 10–18 mm diminishes the
cross-polarization levels for the loaded resonant frequency loaded resonant frequency from 4.40–4.20 GHz only, while

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on January 05,2021 at 10:07:32 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 646 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 45, NO. 4, APRIL 1997

lowest level of back radiation (F/B 28 dB) at the resonant

frequency. In a capacitively coupled slot, which can be seen as
a tunable version of the open stub, the decrease of the loaded
resonant frequency is obtained by increasing the slot length,
with a small variation of the return loss but a degradation in the
back radiation. On the other hand, the return loss of inductively
coupled antennas is much more sensitive to the slot length. The
F/B’s degradation at the loaded resonant frequency must be
kept in mind for any large bandwidth application using a long
resonant coupling slot to obtain a bandwidth enhancement.
A slot loop has been shown to be a good excitation source as
long as its size is kept reasonably small, say smaller than one
half of the patch dimensions. In this case, F/B values above 16
dB are observed for the antenna’s loaded resonant frequency.
For any type of slot excitation, the cross polarization levels
remain below 20 dB in both and planes, and a 7.6-dB
Fig. 11. Experimental return loss and F/B versus frequency for a square gain is obtained for the patch and substrate features under
=
slot-loop excitation (ls 10 mm). consideration.

REFERENCES
the F/B drops from 16 to 5 dB. A comparison between Figs. 5
and 10 also indicates that the loop coupled patch has a larger [1] D. M. Pozar, “Microstrip antenna aperture-coupled to a microstrip line,”
bandwidth that the patch excited by a capacitively coupled slot. Electron. Lett., vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 49–48, Jan. 1985.
[2] P. L. Sullivan and D. H. Schaubert, “Analysis of an aperture coupled
This phenomenon can be explained as follows: for a slot- microstrip antenna,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-34, pp.
aperture excitation, the dominant coupling mechanism is 977–984, Aug. 1986.
mainly a magnetic coupling effect [1]. As the maximum of [3] W. Menzel and W. Grabherr, “A microstrip patch antenna with coplanar
feed line,” IEEE Microwave Guided Wave Lett., vol. 1, pp. 340–342,
magnetic field for the TM mode is located in the center of the Nov. 1991.
rectangular patch antenna, the best coupling will be obtained [4] S. M. Deng, M. D. Wu, and P. Hsu, “Analysis of coplanar waveguide-
fed microstrip antennas,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 43, pp.
for a centered slot. On the other hand, the magnetic field in 734–737, July 1995.
the slot loop is much stronger in the loop edges parallel to the [5] R. L. Smith and J. T. Williams, “Coplanar waveguide feed for microstrip
radiating sides of the patch than in the two other edges of the patch antennas,” Electron. Lett., vol. 28, no. 25, pp. 2272–2274, Dec.
1992.
loop [Fig. 8(a)]. In other words, the patch excitation is mainly [6] G. Forma and J. M. Laheurte, “CPW-fed oscillating microstrip anten-
due to these exciting edges. When the size of the centered nas,” Electron. Lett., vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 85–86, Jan. 1996.
square loop increases, the exciting edges are removed from [7] L. Giauffret and J. M. Laheurte, “Theoretical and experimental char-
acterization of CPW-fed microstrip antennas,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng.
the center of the antenna. Therefore, the coupling mechanism Microwaves, Antennas, Propagat., Pt. H, vol. 143, pp. 13–17, Feb. 1996.
is no longer optimum and the energy provided by the slot [8] J. R. Mosig and F. Gardiol, “General integral equation formulation for
loop is not only coupled to the patch antenna, but also directly microstrip antennas and scatterers,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., pt. H, vol.
132, pp. 424–432, Dec. 1985.
radiated to the back side. The worst coupling obviously occurs [9] J. P. Damiano and A. Papiernik, “A simple and accurate model for the
for loop edges close to the patch sides ( mm). In this resonant frequency and the input impedance of printed antennas,” Int.
J. Microwave Millimeter-Wave Comput.-Aided Eng., vol. 3, no. 4, pp.
case, the patch behaves more like a reflector (bad coupling) 350–361, 1993.
than a radiator (good coupling) toward the power radiated by [10] B. K. Kormanyos, W. Harokoupos, L. P. Katehi, and G. M. Rebeiz,
the loop (Fig. 10). For the smallest slot-loop ( mm), “CPW-fed active slot antennas,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech.,
vol. 42, pp. 541–545, Apr. 1994.
a 7.6-dB gain, and a maximum level of cross polarization
of 20 dB have been measured at the antenna’s resonant
frequency.
In Fig. 11, experimental data obtained for a slot-loop cou-
pled antennas with mm are given for F/B and .
Fig. 11 shows a good agreement with the results obtained
in Fig. 10, the measured resonant frequency (4.32 GHz) is
slightly below the theoretical one (4.38 GHz), and the theoret-
ical and measured F/B curves are quite similar on the overall
Laurent Giauffret was born in Nice, France, in
band. 1969. He received the degree in electronics engi-
neering from the University of Nice, Sophia An-
tipolis, France, in 1993. He is currently working
IV. CONCLUSION toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at
the same university.
In this paper, various shapes of the slot excitation have been His research interest is in numerical modeling
investigated with the help of a numerical modeling of CPW- of microwave structures by the integral equation
fed microstrip antennas. The CPW open stub appears as a good technique.
excitation source, providing both an easy matching and the

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on January 05,2021 at 10:07:32 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 GIAUFFRET et al.: STUDY OF COUPLING SLOT IN CPW-FED MICROSTRIP ANTENNAS 647

Jean-Marc Laheurte was born in Grenoble, A. Papiernik was born in France in 1940. He
France, in 1965. He received the degree in received the Agrégation de Sciences Physiques,
electronics engineering and the Ph.D. degree from degree from the École Normale Supérieure de Saint-
the University of Nice, Sophia Antipolis, France, in Cloud, France, in 1964, and Doctorat-és-Sciences
1989 and 1992, respectively. from the Orsay University, France, in 1969.
In 1989 and 1990, he worked as a Research From 1964 to 1970, he was a Researcher at
Assistant in the École Polytechnique Fédérale, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,
Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1993, he was the recipient France, and a Professor of electrical engineering at
of the Lavoisier Fellowship and worked as a Post- Limoges University, France, from 1970 to 1984. He
Doctoral Researcher in the University of Michigan, is currently a Professor at the University of Nice,
Ann Arbor, with the support of Alcatel Espace. Sophia Antipolis, France. His research interest is in
He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Nice, Sophia microstrip antennas and he is currently studying large-bandwidth and high-
Antipolis, France. His research interests include numerical modeling of purity polarization radiating elements and arrays using the integral equations
microwave structures and active antenna designs. or the transmission line matrix method.

Authorized licensed use limited to: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL. Downloaded on January 05,2021 at 10:07:32 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.