“... once we put an antenna inside the material, the exiting energy comes out close to the direction perpendicular to the planar substrate, resulting in high directivity antenna. Similar concepts have been proposed by other groups.”

Research on metamaterials is moving towards more and more applications and antenna substrate is one of the areas being currently explored. Quite a few papers have addressed the use of metamaterials in antenna design and our paper presented one of the most feasible designs as well as the theory behind it.

A synthesis of knowledge is perhaps an appropriate description, as we combined both analytic theory and numerical analysis in order to solve the problem.

By using a methodology which employs analytic technique and also numerical simulation, we implemented a metamaterial that has both a low permeability and low permittivity. In other words, once we put an antenna inside the material, the exiting energy comes out closely perpendicular to the planar substrate, resulting in a high-directivity antenna. Similar concepts have also been proposed by other groups.

Studying wave behavior in materials has been a focus of our group. As the results of metamaterials research were published, we naturally looked into it and tried to develop relevant theory and applications. The main hurdle was the development of an efficient method to optimize the design.

We look forward for applications to be developed for microwave as well as THz and optical frequencies, where metamaterials can be added to existing technologies.

For the present, it remains a technology that has yet to fully mature.