Comparison Between a Thin Lens Antenna Made of Structured Dielectric Material and Conventional Lens Antennas, in Q-Band in a Compact Volume

In this letter, the performance of a diffractive gradient index lens antenna, constructed by using dielectric subwavelength structuration and manufactured by three-dimensional printing, is compared to the ones of conventional lens antennas in a small footprint configuration. It discusses the advantages and drawbacks of each configuration and compares the simulated and measured gain performances. It shows that structured lens antenna can achieve gain superior to conventional approaches, combined with a 1 dB bandwidth of 10.9%, thanks to the engineering of artificial gradient index. All these benefits are coming with a significant decrease in the antenna weight for the same footprint.