Trident-shaped monopole antenna with p-methoxy-benzylidene-p-n-butyl aniline (MBBA) nematic liquid crystal (NLC) for C- and X-band applications

Abstract In this research article, a novel MBBA nematic liquid crystal (NLC) based circular trident-shaped antenna is proposed for both C-band and X-band microwave applications. The proposed antenna contains a trident-shaped radiating patch, which is made of copper material, and glass material is utilized as a dielectric substrate for the proposed novel MBBA-based trident shaped antenna. The dielectric substrate contains two glass plates with a thickness of 1 mm each and is separated by an air gap of 0.003 mm to fill MBBA nematic liquid crystal. So, the overall size of the proposed antenna will become 15 × 20 × 2.003 mm3. The dielectric constant of each glass plate is chosen as 5.438. However, the antenna operates at a single frequency band, when MBBA material is not present between the glass plates and produces two distinct resonant frequencies when the air gap between the glass plates is filled with MBBA NLC. Antenna radiation parameters such as gain, radiation efficiency, reflection coefficient, and radiation patterns are compared for both simulation and measurement.