Reflectarrays are passive quasi-periodic sub-wavelength antenna arrays designed for discrete reflected phase manipulation at each individual antenna element making up the array. By spatially varying the phase response of the antenna array, reflectarrays allow a planar surface to impress a non-planar phasefront upon re-radiation. Such devices have become commonplace at radio frequencies. In this dissertation, they are demonstrated in the infrared for the first time--at frequencies as high as 194 THz. Relevant aspects of computational electromagnetic modeling are explored, to yield design procedures optimized for these high frequencies. Modeling is also utilized to demonstrate the phase response of a generalized metallic patch resonator in terms of its dependence on element dimensions, surrounding materials, angle of incidence, and frequency. The impact of realistic dispersion of the real and imaginary parts of the metallic permittivity on the magnitude and bandwidth of the resonance behavior is thoroughly investigated. Several single-phase reflectarrays are fabricated and measurement techniques are developed for evaluating these surfaces. In all of these cases, there is excellent agreement between the computational model results and the measured device characteristics. With accurate modeling and measurement, it is possible to proceed to explore some specific device architectures appropriate for focusing reflectarrays, including binary-phase and phase-incremental approaches. Image quality aspects of these focusing reflectarrays are considered from geometrical and chromatic-aberration perspectives. The dissertation concludes by briefly considering two additional analogous devices--the transmitarray for tailoring transmissive phase response, and the emitarray for angular control of thermally emitted radiation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-5007 |
| Date | 01 January 2009 |
| Creators | Ginn, James |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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