A Method to Reduce Cross-Polarization Level of Reflectarray Antennas

A novel method for improving cross-polarization performance of the reflectarray antenna (RA) is presented. By substituting the periphery reflective elements with absorptive elements, the cross-polarization level (XPL) of the RA can be significantly reduced while its gain and sidelobe level are almost unaffected. The proposed method can be easily implemented and can be combined with other XPL-reducing strategies to achieve an even lower XPL. Full-wave simulations are conducted to prove the effectiveness of the proposed method in reducing XPL regarding different illumination edge tapers (ETs).