1264 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 20, NO.

7, JULY 2021

A Circularly Polarized 3-D Printed Dielectric

Transmitarray Antenna at Millimeter-Wave Band
Feng Wei , Member, IEEE, Jia-Wen Hao , Le Xu, and Xiaowei Shi, Member, IEEE

Abstract—In this letter, a novel elliptical cylinder dielectric res-
onator (ECDR) is proposed. By combining a square substrate and
two symmetrical ECDRs, an ECDR element is formed, which can
effectively achieve the transformation from the linearly polarized
incident wave to the circularly polarized (CP) transmitted wave.
By adjusting the height of the element, a linear transmission phase
range over 360° can be obtained, which can reduce the fabrication
difficulty and cost through a 3-D printed technology significantly.
Meanwhile, the ECDR element has a low conductor loss in high
frequency. Additionally, a CP 3-D printed dielectric transmitarray
antenna at the millimeter-wave band is designed by employing the
ECDR elements. It is found that the aperture efficiency is up to
40.3%, the 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth is 17%, and the 1 dB gain
bandwidth is 13.3%, respectively. The measured results are in good
agreement with the simulated ones. This may be the first time
that a CP 3-D printed dielectric transmitarray antenna has been
reported.
Index Terms—3-D printed, circular polarization, dielectric
resonator antennas, transmitarray.
I. INTRODUCTION
VER the past years, the transmitarray antenna has become
O an attractive alternative in millimeter-wave applications
due to its advantages, such as inexpensive fabrication, high gain,
and no insertion loss caused by the feeding network at a higher
frequency band [1]–[5]. The transmitarray antenna consists of
a feed and a periodic planar surface that can transform the inci-
dent wave into the desired one. Compared with the reflectarray
antenna, the transmitarray antenna has a better tolerance to the
surface errors and does not suffer from the feed blockage [6]–[9].
However, the severe drawbacks of the traditional transmitarray
antennas are the high conduct loss and narrowband performance
in the millimeter-wave applications. In order to overcome these
limitations, the dielectric resonators have been proposed for the
dielectric transmitarray antennas [10]–[14].
Meanwhile, the dielectric transmitarray antennas can be
fabricated through 3-D printed technology, which can achieve
rapid prototyping at a low cost. In contrast to the perforated
dielectric transmitarray antennas [10]–[12] that use the
material with high dielectric constant, the novel dielectric
transmitarray antennas that use low dielectric constant material
Manuscript received April 2, 2021; revised April 24, 2021; accepted April 28,
2021. Date of publication May 4, 2021; date of current version July 7, 2021. Date
of publication; date of current version. This work was supported by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61771015. (Corresponding
author: Jia-Wen Hao.)
The authors are with the National Key Laboratory of Antennas
and Microwave Technology, School of Electronic Engineering Xid-
ian University, Xi’an 710071, China (e-mail: fwei@mail.xidian.edu.cn;
jiawenhao@stu.xidian.edu.cn; lexu@mail.xidian.edu.cn; ).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2021.3077290
1536-1225 © 2021 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
are compatible with the 3-D printed technique [13], [14].
In [13], a 3-D printed high-gain transmitarray antenna was
realized for the applications of millimeter wave and terahertz
technologies. In [14], a 3-D printed transmitarray antenna
with a gain of 30.7 dBi was proposed at a millimeter-wave
band.
On the other hand, the circular polarization has been chosen
for its robustness against the environment interference in wire-
less communications [15]–[20]. The circularly polarized (CP)
transmitarray antennas can generate the CP wave from either
linearly polarized (LP) or CP feeding sources. The LP feeding
sources are more common than the CP ones. Therefore, a variety
of CP transmitarray antennas with LP feed has been proposed.
Different kinds of elements can be employed to design the CP
transmitarray antennas, such as cross strips [15], the patches with
U-shaped slots [16], and double-layer elements [17]. Circular
polarization, however, has not been realized in the dielectric
transmitarray antennas.
In this letter, a novel elliptical cylinder dielectric resonator
(ECDR) is proposed. Unlike the previously reported dielectric
resonators [1], [13], [14], the structure of the elliptical cylinder
realizes the LP–CP transformation. By combining a square
substrate and two symmetrical ECDRs, an ECDR element is
proposed. Meanwhile, a transmission phase range over 360° is
achieved by varying the square substrate thickness. Therefore,
by employing the ECDR elements, a CP dielectric transmitarray
antenna with an LP feeding is realized, which has the advantages,
such as ease of fabrication, low Q-factor, and low conductor loss,
in high frequency. Compared with the previously CP dielectric
reflectarray antenna [1], the proposed antenna has not only a
better tolerance to the surface errors but also a higher aperture
efficiency. The simulated and measured results indicate that the
transmitarray antenna can be realized at a millimeter-wave band.
This letter is arranged as follows. In Section II, the ECDR ele-
ment and the transmitarray antenna are proposed and analyzed,
respectively. In Section III, the measurement procedures and
experimental results are described in detail. Finally, Section IV
concludes the letter.
II. ANTENNA DESIGN
A. Configuration of ECDR Element
The ECDR element has a square size of P × P. The top and
bottom ECDRs, aligned along the square substrate, are designed
to have the major axis of D and minor axis of d, respectively. The
square substrate thickness is t. The proposed ECDR element,
as shown in Fig. 1, is composed of a square substrate and
two symmetrical ECDRs, which is photosensitive resin particle

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 WEI et al.: CIRCULARLY POLARIZED 3-D PRINTED DIELECTRIC TRANSMITARRAY ANTENNA AT MILLIMETER-WAVE BAND
Fig. 1. Schematic view of the ECDR element.
Fig. 2. Mechanism of the LP–CP transformation.
rather than a metallic patch. The structure parameters are given
as follows: D = 2.9 mm, d = 1.2 mm, h = 8.7 mm, and P =
5.0 mm (which is λ/2 at 30 GHz).
B. CP Mechanism of ECDR Element
According to the polarization transformation theory [21],
the LP–CP transformation mechanism of the proposed ECDR
element is studied. Fig. 2 shows the mechanism of the LP–CP
transformation. The electric field vectors of the incident wave
and transmitted wave can be obtained as
jφi x jφiy
Ei = Eix + Eiy = (xEix e + y Eiy e )e
Et = Etx +Ety = (xEtx ejφt x + y Ety ejφty )e−jkz
where Eix , Eiy , Etx , and Ety are the electric field vectors of the
incident wave and transmitted wave along the x and y directions,
respectively. φix , φiy , φtx , and φty are the corresponding phase
delays.
The electric field vectors of the LP incident wave can be
decomposed into two components with equal amplitude and
phase. In order to simplify the analysis, the LP incident wave is
set in the direction of ϕ = 45°. Hence, the electric field vector
of the incident wave can be rewritten as
Ei = Eix ejφix (x + y )e−jkz = Eiy ejφiy (x + y )e−jkz . (3)
Compared with the conventional microstrip structure, the
ECDR element is employed with its advantages of the low
conductor loss in high frequency. The conductor loss mainly
affects the transformation amplitude. Hence, for the proposed
ECDR element, the incident wave is fully transmitted. In addi-
tion, the phase difference is ±90° between the two orthogonal
components of the transmitted wave due to the anisotropy of
ECDR. Hence, for the LP incident wave in which the direction
of ϕ = 45° impinges on the ECDR element, the electric field
vector of the transmitted wave can be rewritten as
Et = Etx ejφtx (x ± jy )e−jkz = Ety ejφty (x ± jy )e−jkz .
(4)
It can be noted that a CP transmitted wave along the +z-
direction is generated. In order to verify the proposed LP–CP
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1265
Fig. 3. Magnitudes and phase differences of the co- and cross-polarized
transmission coefficients versus frequency. (a) |Txx |. (b) |Tyx |. (c) Δδ.
transformation mechanism, the analysis has implemented the
proposed ECDR element as follows.
To generate the CP wave, the polarization of the electric field
vector of the LP incident wave must be aligned 45° with respect
to the major axis of the elliptical cylinder. Hence, the x-polarized
wave along the z-direction is set as the incident wave when the
major axis of the elliptical cylinder in the direction of ϕ = 45°.
For the x-polarized incident wave, the transmission coefficients
can be expressed as
Txx = Etx /Eix = Txx eδxx (5)
−jkz
(1)
Tyx = Ety /Eix = Tyx eδyx (6)
(2)
where Txx and Tyx are defined as the co- and cross-polarized
transmission coefficients. δ xx and δ yx are the phases of Txx and
Tyx , respectively. Hence, the phase difference between Txx and
Tyx can be defined as
Δδ = δxx − δyx . (7)
The amplitude variations of Txx and Tyx versus frequency, for
different t, are shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b), respectively. It can be
seen that, when t varies, |Txx | and |Tyx | remain approximately
0.5 from 28.2 to 33.3 GHz, which means that the proposed
ECDR element transforms the x-polarized incident wave into
two components with approximately equal amplitudes in the x
and y-directions at this band. As presented in Fig. 3(c), the phase
difference between Txx and Tyx is almost constant 90°. Hence,
according to the proposed polarization transformation mech-
anism, the LP–CP transformation with different t is achieved
from 28.2 to 33.3 GHz.
To further verify the LP–CP transformation of the proposed
ECDR element, the electric field vectors with orthogonal phase
at 30 GHz are studied. As presented in Fig. 4, when phases are
0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°, the transmitted electric field vectors
on the bottom of the ECDR element are plotted. The blue and
black arrows point to the directions of the transmitted electric
field vectors. The amplitudes of the transmitted electric field
vectors are unchanged and the azimuth angles of the transmitted
electric field vectors turn in the counterclockwise direction as
 1266
Fig. 4. Electric field vectors on the bottom of the ECDR element with orthog-
onal phases at 30 GHz. (a) 0°. (b) 90°. (c) 180°. (d) 270°.
Fig. 5. Transmission magnitudes versus substrate thickness for different inci-
dent angles. (a) |Txx |. (b) |Tyx |.
Fig. 6. Transmission phases versus substrate thickness at different frequencies.
(a) δ xx . (b) δ yx .
the time changes. Therefore, the right-hand circular polarization
(RHCP) wave is obtained in the +z-direction.
C. Simulated Results and Parameters Analysis
Fig. 5 shows the |Txx | and |Tyx | with the x-polarized incident
wave for different incident angles. The incident angle (ϑ) is
the propagation direction of the incident wave in the spherical
coordinate system. The |Txx | and |Tyx | are approximately 0.5 by
varying the substrate thickness from 1 to 13 mm for normal and
oblique incidences, as shown in Fig. 5. Therefore, the angular
stability of the two states makes the developed element a good
candidate for the design of the CP transmitarray antennas.
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021
Fig. 7. Transmission phase distributions for the transmitarray antenna.
Fig. 8. Schematic view of the proposed transmitarray antenna.
Fig. 6 depicts the transmission phase curves as a function
of the substrate thickness t, which shows that the ECDR el-
ement achieves a linear phase range over 360° by adjusting
the substrate thickness t from 1 to 13 mm. Meanwhile, it can
be observed that the transmission phase curves are parallel at
different frequencies, showing the broadband characteristic of
the ECDR element. Therefore, such stable phase curves have
a great potential to enable a wideband performance for the
proposed transmitarray antennas.
D. Design of Transmitarray Antenna
In transmitarray antenna theory, some parameters are set to
calculate the transmission phase distributions of the antenna
and then obtain elements’ distributions. The number of antenna
elements is set as 16 × 16, the focal distance F is set as 115 mm,
the incident angle is set as (0°, 0°), and the transmitted angle
is set as (0°, 0°). Based on Fermat’s principle of equality of the
electrical path lengths, the transmission phase distributions are
obtained, as presented in Fig. 7.
According to the correspondence between the ECDR element
height and the phase distribution, the CP dielectric transmitarray
antenna with LP feeding is presented in Fig. 8. The proposed
transmitarray antenna consists of the transmitting layer, the
phase adjusting layer, and the receiving layer. The symmetri-
cal ECDRs are placed on the transmitting layer and receiving
layer to realize the LP–CP transformation, whereas the square
substrates are placed on the phase adjusting layer to achieve the
transmission phase.
 WEI et al.: CIRCULARLY POLARIZED 3-D PRINTED DIELECTRIC TRANSMITARRAY ANTENNA AT MILLIMETER-WAVE BAND
TABLE I
COMPARISON OF VARIOUS CP TRANSMITARRAY ANTENNAS
Fig. 9. Fabrication and measurement. (a) Photograph of the fabricated trans-
mitarray antenna. (b) Test environment.
Fig. 10. Normalized radiation patterns of the transmitarray antenna and feed
antenna at 30 GHz. (a) E-plane. (b) H-plane.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
In millimeter-wave applications, the processing methods of
antenna fabrication are normally expensive and complicated.
In this letter, a 3-D printed technology is chosen because of
the advantages of easy fabrication and low cost. The proposed
transmitarray antenna uses photosensitive resin, which has a
dielectric constant of 3.4.
As shown in Fig. 9(a), to verify the design, the transmitarray
antenna using photosensitive resin material is fabricated. It
consists of the transmitting layer, the phase adjusting layer, the
receiving layer, and an antenna stand. The antenna stand makes
it easier to fix the proposed antenna on the rotating pedestal.
The test environment has been presented in Fig. 9(b). The
entire measured process has been accomplished in this far-field
measurement system. The LP horn antenna and the proposed
antenna are positioned on a rotating pedestal.
The normalized radiation patterns of the transmitarray an-
tenna and the feed antenna at 30 GHz have been shown in
Fig. 10. It can be easily seen that the transmitarray antenna has
better radiation performance than the feed antenna. Furthermore,
for the transmitarray antenna, the left-hand circular polarization
(LHCP) level is −20 dB below the maximum RHCP gain and
the sidelobe level is lower than 15 dB down from the main beam
at 30 GHz.
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1267
Fig. 11. Simulated and measured gain and AR of the transmitarray antenna.
Fig. 11 depicts the simulated and measured gain and 3 dB axial
ratio (AR) as a function of the frequency. The simulated results
present that the gain is 26 dBi and the high aperture efficiency
is 49.5% at 30 GHz. The measured gain is 0.9 dB lower than
the simulated result because of the fabrication and measurement
error, and the measured aperture efficiency of 40.3% is obtained.
Meanwhile, it can be easily seen that the measured 1 dB gain
bandwidth is 13.3% (from 28.4 to 32.4 GHz) and the measured
AR bandwidth (AR < 3 dB) is 17% (from 28.2 to 33.3 GHz). The
proposed ECDR element and the transmitarray antenna have an
almost equal LP–CP transformation bandwidth.
A comparison between the proposed antenna and some previ-
ously reported CP microstrip transmitarray antennas is given
in Table I. It can be seen that the 1 dB gain bandwidth of
the proposed antenna is wider than others, as given in Table I.
The measured aperture efficiency of the proposed antenna is
higher than the ones in [15]–[19]. In [20], the CP transmitarray
antenna was not measured and the simulated aperture efficiency
of it is lower than the proposed antenna. Therefore, due to the
dielectric structure, the proposed antenna has the wider 1 dB
gain bandwidth and higher aperture efficiency.
IV. CONCLUSION
A novel ECDR element is proposed to design a high aperture
efficiency CP dielectric transmitarray antenna in this letter. The
ECDR element can transform the LP incident wave into the
CP one. By employing ECDR elements, a 256-element CP
transmitarray antenna band has been fabricated at millimeter
wave using 3-D printing technology. It has been seen that the
proposed antenna can obtain a 1 dB gain bandwidth of 13.3%,
a high aperture efficiency of 40.3%, and an AR bandwidth of
17%. Good agreement is achieved between the simulated and
measured results. For the first time, a CP 3-D printed dielectric
transmitarray antenna is proposed in this letter.
 1268 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 20, NO. 7, JULY 2021
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