School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering

The end goal of this work is to fabricate antennas constructed from many suitably arranged metallic nanoparticles which operate in the microwave spectra where there are many communication related applications. When the metallic nanoparticles (dots) are closely spaced the surface will resemble a metal sheet. However, by controlling the density of the dots in certain locations, metallic objects can be constructed which behave as microwave antennas, for example, dipole, patches  and apertures can be created where parts of the structure is effectively transparent at microwave spectra.

This work will lead to the situation where the metallic radiating element and the substrate (also composed of nanomaterials) can be constructed in the same process. This will reduce the complexity and costs of manufacturing antennas and will increase the flexibility of antenna design using bespoke substrate materials.

[1]            W. G. Whittow and Y. Vardaxoglou, "Nano-metamaterial Antennas At Microwave Frequencies," presented at Nanometa 2009, Seefeld, Austria, 2009.
[2]            W. G. Whittow and Y. Vardaxoglou, "Loop antennas at microwave frequencies using nano-metamaterials," presented at IEEE International Symposium on Antennas & Propagation and USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting Charleston, SC, USA, 2009.
[3]            W. G. Whittow, Y. Vardaxoglou, C. Toprakcioglu, and N. Spiliopoulos, "Reflection and Transmission Coefficients of Nano-metamaterial Antennas at Microwave Frequencies," presented at Metamaterials 2009, London, UK, 2009.

[4]            W. G. Whittow and Y. C. Vardaxoglou, "Modifying Conventional Microwave Antenna Designs Using Fine Scale Structures and Nanomaterials " presented at 2009 Loughborough Antennas & Propagation Conference (LAPC), Loughborough, UK, 2009.