Dielectric patch resonator and antenna

This paper presents an overview of dielectric patch (DP) antennas developed in recent years. The employed DP resonator composed of a DP and a bottom substrate is analyzed comprehensively here, enabling the easy realization of a quasi-planar DP antenna. It combines the dual advantages of the conventional microstrip patch (MP) antenna and dielectric resonator (DR) antenna in terms of profile, gain, bandwidth, radiation efficiency, and design freedom. Furthermore, the DP antenna inherits the multi-mode characteristic of the DR antenna, thus it has a large number of high-order modes, including TMmn mode and TEmn mode. The high-order modes are widely applied, for example, by combining with the dominantTMio mode to expand the bandwidth, or selecting multiple higher-order modes to implement a high-gain antenna. Additionally, the non-radiation high-order modes are also utilized to produce natural radiation null in filtering antenna design. In this paper, the design theories and techniques of DP antenna are introduced and investigated, including calculation and control methods of the resonant mode frequencies, analysis of the radiation mechanism, and applications of the multi-mode characteristic. This overview could provide guidance for the subsequent antenna design, thus effectively avoid time-consuming optimization.