Abstract
A leaky-wave antenna with wide scanning angle and high scanning rate based on spoof surface plasmon polaritons transmission line (SSPPs-TL) is proposed. A tilted unit structure is introduced to flexibly adjust the dispersion characteristics, which not only reduces the cut-off frequency of the antenna but also enhances the electric field confinement. In addition, in order to achieve faster beam scanning, a row of periodic metal patches are placed on one side of the SSPPs slow wave structure, while periodic modulation metal strips are introduced on the other side. The proposed design converts slow waves into fast waves while broadening the scanning angle, thereby increasing the scanning rate. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme has been verified by the designed SSPP leaky-wave antenna in this paper. The measured results demonstrate that the designed antenna achieves a total scanning range of 41∘ to 30∘ and a maximum gain of 9.31 dBi in the operating frequency band of 5.8–8.4 GHz. Moreover, this antenna features a low profile and a compact structure and can be applied in communication systems.