Research Advance on Transparent Surface Plasmon Polaritons Antenna

In this paper, we present a transparent endfire antenna based on an optical and radio frequency (RF) transparent quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) structure. The antenna utilizes two different phase propagation constants resulting from the asymmetric quasi-1D SPPs structure for phase modulation. The loading of quasi-1D impedance matching structure contributes to the efficient conversion of SPPs waves to space waves. The proposed antenna achieves stable endfire radiation in the operating band of 14.5-15.5 GHz, with excellent optical transparency of the radiation portion. This approach demonstrates the ability of the quasi-1D SPPs structure to modulate the phase propagation constant and proves the potential of the quasi-1D SPPs structure to realize transparent antennas.