Metamaterials technology: Application to radiofrequency and microwave circuits

© 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Recently, metamaterials technology has emerged as a novel approach for the design of radiofrequency and microwave components and circuits. Metamaterials are artificial materials, made of small size inclusions (or "atoms"), whose electromagnetic properties can be tailored to some extent, and rather than depending on the composition, these properties depend on the arrangement of the constitutive elements. Thus, for instance, it is possible to synthesize artificial media exhibiting a negative effective magnetic permeability and dielectric permittivity with non-magnetic metallic particles etched on a dielectric slab. Media with such properties (negative permeability and permittivity) are not present among natural materials. These controllable properties can be achieved by designing the structures with electrically small inclusions, so that effective media properties are obtained. Metamaterials are of interest in many areas. For instance, it has been recently demonstrated the possibility of implementing invisible cloaks for microwave radiation. However, one of the main areas where metamaterials are of major interest is in RF/microwave engineering. The small size of the unit cells and the controllable properties, are very interesting for the design of planar components with small dimensions and high performance. Also, it is possible to design devices based on new functionalities, multiband components and circuits with enhanced operative bandwidths. These metamaterial based design techniques can be applied in a wide range of frequencies, from RF up to millimetre wave circuits. Several prototype devices (filters, diplexers, power dividers, couplers, and reconfigurable components) in planar technology, illustrative of the possibilities of the approach, will be presented. This will include realizations in PCB and also in advance microelectronics technologies, such as RF-MEMS and MCM-D technologies.