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Implementation of Broadband Isolator Using
Metamaterial-Inspired Resonators and a T-Shaped Branch
for MIMO Antennas
Chih-Chun Hsu, Ken-Huang Lin, and Hsin-Lung Su
Abstract—We develop a novel MIMO antenna with excellent broadband
isolation performance in this communication. Metamaterial (MTM)-in-
spired resonators can function as insulators and are placed periodically
into a compact MIMO antenna system for portable applications. These
insulators only need a 0.18 wavelength. The broadband insulators can
efficiently reduce the coupling of MIMO antennas. Isolation bandwidth
under 20 dB can reach 8% with relative to the center frequency. Adding
a T-shaped branch behind the insulators markedly improves the isolation
bandwidth. An isolation bandwidth under 20 dB can achieve 19.3% rela-
tive to the center frequency. The effectiveness of the proposed insulators
is validated by measurements.
Index Terms—Electromagnetic bandgap materials, isolation technology,
insulators, MIMO systems.
I. INTRODUCTION
Since the development of wireless technology, high data transmis-
sion rates have become increasingly necessary. The data transmission
rate can be increased by increasing the SNR or signal bandwidth.
However, this approach cannot improve spectral efficiency. Instead,
multi-input multi-output (MIMO) technology is more effective for rich
multipath environment [1], [2]. However, coupling between antennas
causing high signal correlation can reduce the data transmission rate
and the antenna efficiency [2]–[4]. A MIMO antenna typically requires
a half-wavelength separation distance to reduce signal correlation
transmission line feed are printed onto the FR-4 substrate.
which can be difficult to meet in mobile devices. Notably, many
decoupling techniques have been developed. In [5], E-shaped PIFA
elements were placed orthogonally to reduce coupling. The mush-
room-like electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) suppresses surface waves
Manuscript received August 06, 2009; revised January 06, 2011; accepted
February 28, 2011. Date of publication August 04, 2011; date of current version
October 05, 2011. This work was supported in part by the ITRI, Taiwan, under
Contract GI-97004 and the National Science Council, Taiwan, under Contract
No. NSC97-2221-E-110-037-MY3.
C.-C. Hsu and K.-H. Lin are with the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan (e-mail:
cchsu@pcs.ee.nsysu.edu.tw; khlin@mail.nsysu.edu.tw).
H.-L. Su is with the Department of Computer and Communication, National
Pingtung Institute of Commerce, Pingtung 900, Taiwan (e-mail: hlsu@npic.edu.
tw).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2011.2163741
Fig. 1. Geometry of the 2-element MIMO antenna system.
[6], [7] to eliminate coupling. However, both require a large area or
a high-K substrate [8]. In [3], a decoupling network was designed
by connecting a reactive element between two antenna feeding ports
to reduce coupling. While this method markedly reduces separation,
the decoupling network generates additional cost. In [9], the coupling
element was utilized to eliminate coupling. Still the methods in [3],
[9] have rather narrow operating bandwidths. Insufficient isolation
bandwidth for MIMO antenna remains a problem for a variety of
wireless communication applications.
Metamaterials (MTMs) are artificial structures that have many prop-
erties not found in nature. Negative permittivity materials can be real-
ized using thin wires [10], and negative permeability can be achieved
using split-ring resonators (SRRs) [11]. We propose a novel insulator
that uses MTM and an isolation mechanism that are easily integrated
into mobile devices. The proposed compact (0:14 3 0:12) insulator
is printed on low-cost FR-4 substrates. By designing an appropriately
polarized E-field, the insulator has a broadband performance of roughly
20%. The broad operating bandwidth can cover many communication
bands in MIMO applications.
II. MIMO ANTENNA AND METAMATERIAL-INSPIRED RESONATOR
DESIGN
Fig. 1 shows the geometries of a two-element MIMO antenna system
without an isolation mechanism [12]. The MIMO antenna uses an FR-4
substrate ("r = 4:4) with dimensions of 100 2 50 2 0.8 mm3 ; total
radiating element area is 16 2 50 mm2 . Two meander-line monopoles
with a 50-
These antennas are separated by 0.18  (21 mm). The meander-line
monopole antenna is designed to operate at 2370–2980 MHz. Thus, the
operating bandwidth is sufficient for both WLAN (2400–2484 MHz)
and mobile WiMAX (2500–2690 MHz) communication standards. The
isolation of the two ports of the MIMO antenna is roughly 15 dB in its
operating bands.
Fig. 2(a) shows the designed MTM-inspired resonator [13]. The ge-
ometry of the cell, which is 7.6 2 3.5 mm2 , printed on FR4 substrate,
whose size is 8 2 4 2 0.8 mm3 . The operating mechanism of the unit
cell is the incident E-field perpendicular to the gap of the cell that stores
electrical energy and acts as a capacitor while the H field, which is
perpendicular to the surface of the cell, introduces an inductor that
stores magnetic energy. This work modifies this structure slightly by
extending the spiral line length to enhance its capacitance and lower its
operating frequency.

0018-926X/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2011
Fig. 2. (a) Geometries and dimensions of 1-layers of MTM-inspired resonators.
(b) PEC-PMC waveguide setup. (c) 3-layers of MTM-inspired resonators. The
individual layer of cells has a 0.4 mm spiral length difference.
The Erentok’s method [13] is used to determine the characteristics of
the designed cells, with dimensions of the PEC-PMC waveguide given
in Fig. 2(b). The upper and lower boundaries are set to the PMC and
the front and rear boundaries are set to the PEC. The x-polarized plane
wave propagates along the +y -axis.
The S-parameters are extracted using the PEC-PMC waveguide
method which means that a plane wave is incident into an infinitely
extended structure, which is composed of simulated cells along the
x-direction and z -direction. In order to truncate the metamaterial to
reduce the thickness without affecting the desired isolation, we set the
separation of the +z=0z boundaries to a large value of 10.8 mm to
enlarge the distance between layer and layer of the metamaterial along
the z -directions. Therefore, this design is suitable for applying to thick
portable device.
The 010 dB bandwidth of S11 of one cell is 2560–2670 MHz. To in-
crease the operating bandwidth of the insulator, a three-layer structure
is utilized [14], [15] (Fig. 2(c)). The adjacent cells are 1.4 mm apart.
Each layer of resonators is designed for different but close frequencies
to increase the operating bandwidth of the insulator. The difference in
total spiral length of each layer of resonators is set at 0.4 mm. The 010
dB bandwidth of S11 of three-layer design is 2320–2660 MHz.
The insulators are inserted into the MIMO antenna (Fig. 3). Because
the three-layer insulator is asymmetrical looking from the 6y direction,
the return losses of the two antennas, S11 and S22, differ. The three-
layer insulator design suppresses S21 of the MIMO system below 020
dB at 2.52–2.73 GHz (8%). The S11 of the antenna still satisfies the
010 dB requirement for its operating bands.
III. ANALYSIS OF MTM-INSPIRED RESONATORS COMBINED WITH A
T-SHAPED BRANCH
In [14], the bulk, periodically placed resonators are equivalent to an
artificial magnetic conductor (AMC). Fig. 4 shows the simulation re-
sult for the near field of the MIMO system with insulators. Clearly, the
upper resonators mostly have y -polarized components of the E-field
(Fig. 4(a)). However, this polarized direction does not correspond to the
setup of the PEC-PMC waveguide simulation discussed in Section II.
3937
Fig. 3. Geometry of MIMO antenna with 3-layer insulators.
Fig. 4. (a) The MTM-inspired resonator place near the top of the antenna,
the E-field in here is tangential component dominated. (b) With an L-shaped
grounding structure, the E-field can be guided to normal component dominated
and satisfies its polarized E-field direction.
Hence, the upper resonator of the insulator cannot function fully. To
enable all upper resonators, this work proposes an L-shaped branch
connected to a ground to modify the polarized direction of the E-field
(Fig. 4(b)). This method produces relatively more normally polarized
direction of the E-field for insulator upper resonators. Then, two res-
onators, which are arranged in a column, with an L-shaped branch are
considered. As the resonators are closely spaced, they will couple with
each other. This can result in mode splitting and increase bandwidth
[15], [16]. The isolation band is therefore extended.
Because the L-shaped branch is helpful for exciting the resonator and
extending isolation bandwidth, this work changes the L-shaped branch
into a symmetrical structure, a T-shaped branch, and placed it behind
the three-layer insulators (Fig. 3). It is found that the resonators have a
strong coupling with each other and the resonating frequency excited
by each layer become widely separate, resulting in a lower isolation
level in between these resonating frequencies. Hence, we adjust the
central layer of the three-layer insulators to reduce coupling. Fig. 5(a)
shows this new arrangement of resonators. The difference in total spiral
length of each layer of resonators is increased to 0.8 mm because each
layer has an increased isolation bandwidth.
Fig. 5(b) shows simulation results. The isolation bandwidth, which
is roughly 19.3% at the center frequency, is larger than that of MIMO
antennas with the three-layer insulator (Fig. 3), which is roughly 280
MHz (11.2%). The broadband insulator can be used in WCDMA and
WLAN+WiMAX applications.
3938 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2011
Fig. 5. (a) The proposed MIMO antenna with broadband isolation performance
and geometries of the T-shaped grounding structure. (b) The simulated results
of (a).
Fig. 6. Isolation improvement by adding 3-layer insulators.
IV. MEASUREMENT AND DISCUSSION
This experimental study examines the characteristics of the proposed
broadband insulator. Four samples were fabricated and measured using
Agilent E5071 ENA. Fig. 1 shows the original MIMO antenna. To im-
prove isolation, this work adds three-layer insulators to the MIMO an-
tenna system (sample A). Fig. 6 shows the measured S21 of the original
MIMO antenna (dotted line) and that in sample A (cross line). Isolation
has been improved by about 16 dB in the best case. Additionally, the
20 dB-isolation bandwidth is from 2480 to 2720 MHz, which is about
8% of the center frequency.
Fig. 7. (a) Photograph of the proposed MIMO antenna with broadband isola-
tion (sample B) that depicted in Fig. 5(a), the front surface has 5 MTM-inspired
resonators which are arranged as H-shape, and at the rear surface has a T-shaped
grounding structure. (b) Measured S11 of sample B. (c) Comparison of isola-
tion. The bandwidth of sample B is enhanced compared to that of sample A.
Fig. 5(a), sample B, shows the H-shaped insulator with the T-shaped
branch. The H-shaped insulator is printed on the same side of the an-
tenna on the front side of the FR4 board and the T-shaped branch is
connected to the ground on the backside of the board. Fig. 7 shows the
realized prototype, measured return losses, and isolations. In Fig. 7(b),
the dotted line is the S11 and the 010 dB bandwidth is 2290–2910
MHz. The solid line is the S22 and the bandwidth is 2320–2770 MHz.
Both bandwidths are sufficient to cover the WLAN+WiMAX bands.
Fig. 7(c) shows the measured S21 of sample B. The solid line is the
isolation of sample B and the dotted line is the isolation of sample A.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 59, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2011
Fig. 8. Measured S-parameters of sample C. When the resonators is not put on
the antenna, S11 is not matched. The circle-line is measured S21 for sample D.
In sample B, the 20 dB isolation bandwidth achieves a 12.8% improve-
ment by adding the T-shaped branch, and its performance is suitable
for other communication systems that require even wider bandwidths.
Sample C retains the T-shaped branch from sample B (Fig. 5(a)),
and the H-shaped insulator is removed. Sample D retains the H-shaped
insulator from sample B, and the T-shaped branch is removed. Fig. 8
shows the measured S-parameter results for sample C. The line made
of crosses and the line made of diamonds represents the S21 in sample
C and the original MIMO antenna, respectively. For sample C, the
maximum S21 has a measured value of 010:3 dB. The isolation of
sample C is worse than that of the original MIMO antenna. Because
the T-shaped structure conducts current to another antenna, S21 values
increase. The strong coupling between antennas also causes the input
impedance of antennas to mismatch. The return losses of sample C have
a small 10 dB bandwidth (dotted line). The line made of circles rep-
resents the measured S21 of sample D. The total difference in spiral
length of each layer of resonators is large (8 mm) and not all resonators
can function; thus, the 20 dB isolation bands are not continuous. Sim-
ulated radiation efficiency of the proposed antennas in sample B is
around 50–60%.
V. CONCLUSION
The MIMO antenna system using MTM-inspired resonators reduces
the coupling of antennas. After the three-layer insulator is added, iso-
lation improves by 16 dB in the best case, and the 20 dB isolation
bandwidth achieves about 8%. The proposed L-shaped branch is uti-
lized to excite the resonators and thereby increase isolation bandwidth.
Eventually, the MIMO antenna system with H-shaped insulators and a
T-shaped branch is proposed. The 20 dB isolation bandwidth is about
12.8% better than that of the three-layer insulators. Therefore, these
insulators are very suitable for broadband communication systems. A
separation of only 0.18 wavelength between two antennas is needed for
the insulators. These insulators are also very suited to integration into
portable devices.
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