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Millimeter-Wave Conical Fresnel Zone Lens of Flat Dielectric Rings

Article in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation · April 2014

DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2014.2303165

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2140 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Millimeter-Wave Conical Fresnel Zone Lens of Flat
Dielectric Rings
L. P. Kamburov, J. M. Rodriguez, Member, IEEE, J. R. Urumov, and H. D. Hristov, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Conical in shape Fresnel zone (CFZ) lens of flat dielec-
tr ic r ings is introduced and studied in this research. It is contr asted
to a plane Fresnel zone (PFZ) lens, a CFZ lens of conical r ings and
a refr active plane-hyper bolic (PH) lens. For the same aper ture di-
ameter of about 25 mm and focal length of 30 mm, a 229-GHz CFZ
lens of flat r ings with a 30-degree opening semi-angle significantly
sur passes the PFZ and PH lenses in focusing gain and efficiency.
Also, it exhibits a subwavelength tr ansver se resolution and much
higher axial resolution. The cited 30-degree flat-r ing CFZ lens has
4.5 times smaller weight than the PH lens, and is easy to manufac-
ture as a plane multilayer package by means of precise machining
or moder n photolithogr aphic and other microelectronic technolo-
gies. Never theless, the CFZ lens benefits over the cor responding
PH refr active lens ar e attained on account of smaller frequency
bandwidth and bigger lens thickness. The new flat-r ing CFZ lens
design can be applied in accur ate imaging systems or for a cre-
ation of light and efficient microwave, ter aher tz and optical lens
antennas.
Index Terms—Focusing, Fresnel zone lens, lens, lens antenna,
mm/sub-millimeter lens.
I. INTRODUCTION
D EPENDING on its aperture transmission function, the
Fresnel zone (FZ) lens is branded in two basic categories:
binary (amplitude) and phase-correcting. In addition, according
to the zonal surface shape, this lens is termed planar (2D) or
curvilinear (3D). Often, the phase-correcting FZ lens is made
as a single-dielectric zone plate with annular grooves and ribs,
producing a stepwise phase distribution in the lens aperture
[1]–[6]. A bilaterally-plane and thin FZ lens with a multi-di-
electric phase correction is also of practical interest [2], [5], [7].
The curvilinear zone plate lens can be formed on an arbitrary
shaped surface, but the FZ lens with a rotational silhouette is the
most simple and efficient. The spherical, cylindrical, and conical
FZ lenses are next in simplicity to the planar Fresnel zone plate
[3], [5], [8]–[10], marked here as PFZ lens.
Manuscript received April 25, 2013; revised August 24, 2013; accepted Jan-
uary 17, 2014. Date of publication January 28, 2014; date of current version
April 03, 2014. This work was supported in part by the FONDECYT Projects
1095012/2009 and 1120714/2012, Anillos ACT-Project 53/2010, and CON-
ICYT-PHCA/DOCTORADO NACIONAL/2014-21190769.
L. P. Kamburov and J. R. Urumov are with Department of Commu-
nications, Technical University of Varna, Varna 9010, Bulgaria (e-mail:
lkamburov@mail.bg)
J. M. Rodriguez and H. D. Hristov are with Departamento de Electrónica,
Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Marı́a, Valparaíso, Chile (e-mail: hristo.
hristov@usm.cl).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2014.2303165
0018-926X © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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The authors of [3] have made significant theoretical and ex-
perimental advancement in the area of curvilinear FZ lenses,
and in particular, of conical dielectric FZ lenses.
A computational field-focusing method based on a cone-seg-
ment approximation for any axially-rotational curvilinear FZ
lens is developed in [11]. Conical double-dielectric phase- re-
versal FZ lens and antenna are examined theoretically and opti-
mized numerically in [12].
The 3D or curvilinear FZ lens has more degrees of freedom
for better parametric optimization compared to the flat PFZ lens.
For example, in the axially-symmetric conical lens a third di-
mension is the lens thickness (height) , which is related to the
cone opening semi-angle .
Typically, the known curvilinear dielectric FZ lens configu-
rations consist of phase-correcting elements (ribs/corrugations)
that follow the FZ surface curvature, and are difficult to produce
[3], [12]. If the phase-correcting elements are cut in a same-di-
electric curvilinear carcass, the lens focusing can be deteriorated
significantly.
In this paper, a mm-wave FZ lens, made of flat dielectric rings
conformal to a conical surface, is designed and studied. The
present text is based on a short conference paper presented re-
cently [13]. The proposed flat-ring conical FZ lens is analyzed
by use of a specific diffraction model and detailed computer
simulations, and is checked experimentally. It is contrasted nu-
merically to the similar conical FZ lens [3], [5], [12], plane FZ
lenses, and ordinary plane-hyperbolical (PH) lens.
All computer simulations in the paper are completed by use of
the CST software [14]. In addition, some results are validated by
use of Kirchhoff’s diffraction theory and FEKO electromagnetic
solver [15].
The cone FZ lens study is limited here to the case of paraxial
plane wave incidence on the lens convex side. Ideally, after
through-lens passing, the plane wave should be converged into
a spherical wave focused at the primary lens focus. However, in
the case of wave transitory through a realistic lens, the resultant
spherical wave becomes aberrated. For the paraxial lens illumi-
nation applied here, there are two aberrations of practical impor-
tance: axial spherical aberration and frequency aberration. Due
to the axial spherical aberration the fictitious lens focal point
(spot) becomes a linear focal region. This effect is strongly pro-
nounced in the plane FZ (PZP) lens and ordinary plane-convex
lenses: plane-hyperbolic (PH) and plane-spherical (PS). There-
fore, these lenses applied to optical or quasi-optical imaging
systems mostly deal with the imaging of finite axial objects at
infinity or vice versa. High-quality images of point-like 3D ob-
jects call for further improvement of transverse and axial lens
resolutions.
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KAMBUROV et al.: MILLIMETER-WAVE CONICAL FRESNEL ZONE LENS OF FLAT DIELECTRIC RINGS 2141

mary focus P (receive mode), or vice versa (transmit mode).

Thus, both conical FZ lenses in Fig. 1 have a similar lettering
for the zone radii , axial zone coordinates ,
cone semi-angle , cone apex O and focal point P. The distance
OP is equal to the lens primary focal length . By changing ,
the lens dimensions and focusing characteristics vary consider-
ably [11].

B. Design Equations for CFZ Lenses

For a given design wavelength , cone semi-angle angle ,
and focal length , the -th zone radius and axial zone lo-
cation are calculated by the following system of equations
[3], [5]

(1)

(2)

where is an integer sequence, is the

number of all half-wave (Fresnel) zones and is a
half-wave zone function. During the simulation and optimiza-
tion of conical FZP lenses it has been found that the replacement
of in (1) by makes reasonable focal shift compensa-
tion.
In the conical FZ lenses, shown in Fig. 1, the odd-number
zones are open apertures with the air relative permittivity
. The phase-reversing rings at the even-number zones are made
of low-loss dielectric with a permittivity . The dielectric
rings can be also embedded in a low-permittivity solid or liquid
Fig. 1. Conical FZ lenses consisting of (a) conical rings in case of media, with . The thickness of the lens
or (b) flat rings in case of , both convex-side illuminated by plane consisting of conical dielectric rings, Fig. 1(a), is
wave. calculated [11]–[13]

The reduction of lens spherical aberration is of great sig- (3)

nificance in the lens imaging systems and lens antennas. The
smaller spherical aberration leads to a bigger axial resolution, In the conical lens made of flat dielectric rings
and thus, to a true 3D imaging. In the lens antennas, the spher- in air, Fig. 1(b), the ring apertures are illuminated under a right
ical aberration reduction brings on a higher antenna gain and angle , and therefore, (3) is transformed to (4) [2], [5]
smaller sidelobes in the radiation pattern.

II. FUNDAMENTALS OF CONICAL FRESNEL ZONE LENS (4)

A. Study Layouts
where and .
Fig. 1(a) shows the axial cross-section of the phase-reversal All lenses considered in this paper are designed by a low-
FZ lens consisting of conical dielectric rings [3], [5], [12]. This loss polyethylene with a relative permittivity and loss
lens takes here the acronym that corresponds to tangent equal to 0.0004.
a conical Fresnel zone lens made of conical rings, having an
opening semi-angle . C. Diffraction Theory for Analysis of Conical Fresnel Zone
Another conical Fresnel zone lens made as an assembly of Lens of Flat Dielectric Rings
coaxial flat dielectric rings and abbreviated as is Next the Kirchhoff’s diffraction equation is adapted for
proposed here, Fig. 1(b). The flat dielectric rings in finding the axial focusing field produced by the lens design
are transverse projections of the conical rings. Thus, . As seen from Fig. 1(b), this lens consists of flat
in both FZ lens configurations the corresponding dielectric rings dielectric rings Ring 1 , Ring 2 , and conical
have equal Fresnel zone radii and axial location. These diffrac- open apertures. In order to simplify the theoretical diffraction
tion-type lenses transform the incident plane wave into a spher- model, the flat-ring lens are represented by the
ical wave in a step-wise manner, converging mainly to the pri- equivalent geometry shown in Fig. 2(a), where the conical

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2142 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 4, APRIL 2014

is
the Huygens source factor;
is a plane wave phase
shift due to the ring.
The function is a binary
function of . For (odd numbers) , which
corresponds to the air disks , and for
(even numbers), that is related to the dielectric disks
.
The field produced at any point by the
entire -th dielectric or air ring is expressed as

(6)

where the expression for is written in the equation at the

bottom of the page. The total lens focusing field at point
is produced by all dielectric and air lens rings, or

(7)
Fig. 2. lens focusing action: (a) equivalent lens geometry, and (b)
geometry of -th focusing ring.
for .
The focusing intensity along the axis (at the current
apertures are replaced by air flat rings (apertures) point , for ), is defined as
These air rings (thin dotted lines) are transverse projections of
the corresponding conical apertures.
According to the classical diffraction theory the elemental (8)
aperture area dA of a given n-th ring ( or ), Fig. 2(b),
produces an elemental focusing field at any axial point P
At the focal point P, for , the focusing intensity is named
given by (5)
a focusing gain FG. For FG in decibels the above equation can
be rewritten as

(5)
(9)
where is the imaginary unit, is the free-
space phase number; is a plane wave field Independently of eventual focal shift correction by , the
at the point in the lens absence, and at the focusing maximum intensity may not occur exactly at
cone vertex O; , but at another focal point . Then, the
lens maximum focusing gain is obtained similarly by (8), but
for or

where
(10)
corresponds to (2);

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KAMBUROV et al.: MILLIMETER-WAVE CONICAL FRESNEL ZONE LENS OF FLAT DIELECTRIC RINGS 2143

TABLE I
DIMENSIONS OF FZ AND PH DIELECTRIC LENSES AT 229 GHz

B. Numerical Study of Fresnel Zone Lenses

Fig. 4(a) shows YZ-plane focusing field intensity plot of the
planar lens FZP.2. The focusing field intensity along the lens
axis is illustrated in Fig. 4(b), where the solid-line and dotted-
line graphs are obtained by means of numerical simulation and
diffraction theory, respectively. Obviously, the main lobes of
both intensity patterns are in a good agreement. Fig. 4(c) shows
Fig. 3. Fresnel zone lenses: (a) 45-deg lens CFZc.3.45 of conical rings, and (b)
the same lens focusing intensity graphs in the transverse focal
45-deg lens CFZf.3.45, (c) 30-deg lens CFZf.5.30 and (d) 90-deg lens PFZ.2, plane XY, along the axes (solid line) and (dashed line).
all three of flat rings. It is observed that in the focal plane area the focusing intensity
possesses a good rotational symmetry.
Similar computer-simulated graphs only are illustrated in
III. STUDY OF FZ LENSES AND PLANO-HYPERBOLICAL LENS Fig. 5 for the cone-like lens CFZc.3.45 built of conical dielec-
tric rings.
The focusing intensity distribution of the lens CFZf.3.45 is
A. FZ Lens Designs illustrated in Fig. 6 as: (a) CST-simulation YZ-plane plot, (b)
along Z axis, obtained by CST simulation (solid line), and cross-
Based on the lens geometries in Fig. 1, several conical and checked by means of diffraction theory (dashed line) and FEKO
plane FZ lenses are designed and studied. simulation (dotted line), and (c) along X axis (solid line) and Y
All FZ dielectric lenses are designed by use of (1)–(4) for axis (dashed line), computed by use of CST only.
the frequency GHz (or wavelength mm), Fig. 7 shows the CST-simulated focusing intensity character-
focal length 30 mm, lens diameter mm and ring thick- istics of the 30-deg lens CFZf.5.30. There, Fig. 7(a) shows an
ness , calculated by (3) or (4). For , the two conical YZ-plane plot, in Fig. 7(b) is drawn a Z-axis graph (solid line),
FZ lenses have 3 phase-reversal dielectric rings each, and are and finally, Fig. 7(c) illustrates the intensity distribution along
marked as conical-ring lens CFZc.3.45, Fig. 3(a), and flat-ring X axis (solid line) and Y axis (dashed line).
lens CFZf.3.45, Fig. 3(b). In CFZf.3.45 the ring radius is It is observed in Fig. 7 that the lens CFZf.5.30 has very spe-
equal to the ring axial coordinate , i.e., ). cific focusing characteristics: subwavelength resolution in the
In CFZf.5.30, Fig. 3(c), the semi-angle is 30 and the number transverse focal plane and highly improved axial resolution. The
of rings is 5. main lobe of the focused electromagnetic field along the Z-axis
If , the CFZc and CFZf lenses are transformed into a is strongly concentrated around the primary lens focus. The sec-
planar Fresnel zone (PFZ) lens. For approximately the same lens ondary small lobes at both sides are located at a distance of sev-
diameter ( mm) the PFZ lens has only two dielectric eral wavelengths from the main lobe peak and collect a rather
rings, and is abbreviated as PFZ.2, Fig. 3(d). small part of the axial focused power.
Two extra PFZ lenses have been designed and simulated: (i)
lens PFZ.3, which have the same number of rings and C. Numerical Study of Plane-Hyperbolic Lens
similar focusing gain as that of lens CFZf.3.45, and (ii) lens Fig. 8 shows the focusing geometry of a plane-hyperbolic
PFZ.4 made of four dielectric rings and is comparable in fo- (PH) dielectric lens with the same focal length and diameter,
cusing gain to the lens CFZf.5.30. 30 mm and 25 mm, respectively. Here, the plane wave incident
Each CFZ lens looks like a truncated cone, therefore the lens on the lens is transformed by refraction into a spherical wave
thickness is smaller than the cone height , or focused at the point P.
. The thickness of all the PFZ lenses is mm or
equal to one free-space wavelength. All lens dimensions (aper-
ture diameter , aperture area and thickness ) and the
weight are listed in Table I. The data for the newly-proposed
conical flat-ring lenses, CFZf.3.45 and CFZf.5.30, are written (11)
in bold.

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2144 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 4, APRIL 2014
Fig. 4. Focusing gain of lens PFZ.2: (a) in YZ plane, (b) along axial lens axis
, obtained by use of computer-simulation (solid line) and diffraction theory
(dotted line), and (c) along axis (solid line) and axis (dashed line).
For , and for the values of F and given above,
the lens thickness computed by (11) is mm (or ).
In Fig. 9 are shown the focusing characteristics of the
plane-hyperbolic lens at 229 GHz, where Fig. 9(a) illustrates
the YZ-plane plot of the focusing field intensity . Also,
illustrated are: the focusing intensity graphs vs. , Fig. 9(b),
and vs. (solid line) and (dashed line), Fig. 9(c).
All transverse-plane intensity graphs along the axes X and Y
are related to the focal plane mm.
D. Experimental Crosscheck for Lens CFZf.3.45
Experimental crosschecking to the numerical results for the
flat-ring CFZf.3.45 lens has been carried out at the design fre-
quency of 229 GHz.
Fig. 10 is a photograph of the polyethylene lens prototype,
where rings are assembled through by thin stepwise supports
made of the same plastic.
Fig. 11 is a picture of the millimeter-wave measurement setup
with the prototype lens under test. The lens is illuminated from a
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Fig. 5. Focusing gain of lens CFZc.3.45: (a) in YZ plane, (b) along axis and
(c) at focal plane along axis (solid line) and axis (dashed line).
distance of around 1 m by means of 23-dB corrugated horn fed
by a frequency-multiplication millimeter/sub-millimeter wave
transmitter module [16].
A same-company receiver unit is connected to an open wave-
guide (OWG) probe antenna. Micrometric positioning of the
lens under test and OWG field probe is done by means of pre-
cise opto-mechanical stages [17].
The computer-simulated (solid line), diffraction theory
(dotted line) and experimental (solid line with dots) field inten-
sity X-axis graphs are contrasted in Fig. 12. For the time-being,
the experimental scanning setup allows accurate measurements
in the main beam area only.
Nevertheless, a very good match between theory and mea-
surement is found with reference to the main lobe focusing gain
and transverse ( -axis) resolution at the 3-dB and 10-dB
intensity levels down to the normalized main lobe maximum.
Fig. 13 illustrates the focusing gain (FG) of the lens
CFZf.3.45 as a function of frequency, computer-simulated by
CST (solid line) and FEKO (dotted line). The two electro-mag-
netic solvers give similar resonance-shape gain vs. frequency
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KAMBUROV et al.: MILLIMETER-WAVE CONICAL FRESNEL ZONE LENS OF FLAT DIELECTRIC RINGS 2145

Fig. 7. Focusing gain of CFZf.5.30 produced by CST: (a) in YZ plane, (b) along
axial axis , and (c) along -axis (solid line) or -axis (dashed line).
Fig. 6. Focusing gain of lens CFZf.3.45: (a) computer-simulated focusing plot
in YZ-plane, (b) Z-axis graphs produced by means of CST (solid line), diffrac-
tion theory (dashed line) and FEKO (dotted line), and (c) CST-simulated graphs
along axis (solid line) and axis (dashed line).

responses, with curve maxima close to the design frequency of

229 GHz.
Table II summarizes the basic parameters of the examined
FZ and PH lenses: computer-simulated (s) and experimental
(e). These are: the maximum focusing intensity (or focusing
gain) FG (in dB), focusing efficiency Eff (in %), 3-dB trans-
verse lens resolution and axial resolution relative
to the design wavelength, and gain frequency bandwidth BW
Fig. 8. Focusing geometry of plane-hyperbolic dielectric lens.
(in %). It is found that along the and axes the resolution
is roughly the same, or . Because of this, the trans-
verse resolution is listed as an average value of and ,
or . The real PH lens (PH-real) is found by use of the fundamental Rayleigh criterion, according to
computer-simulated provided that dielectric and reflection loss which any circular aperture illuminated by paraxial plane-wave
are included, while the ideal PH lens (PH-ideal) is set as a basis rays has a resolution given by
for comparison. The PH-ideal focusing gain is calculated by use
of equation 4.21 given in [5], its focusing efficiency is consid-
ered 100%. The transverse resolution of the lens PH-ideal is (12)

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2146 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 62, NO. 4, APRIL 2014

Fig. 11. Experimental millimeter-wave setup at UTFSM.

Fig. 12. CFZf.3.45 lens normalized focusing gain vs. coordinate obtained
by computer-simulation (solid line), diffraction theory (dotted line), and mea-
surement (solid line with dots).

Fig. 9. Focusing gain of refraction PH lens: (a) in YZ plane, (b) along the
axis and (c) along axis (solid line) or (dashed line) axis.

Fig. 13. CFZf.3.45 lens focusing gain vs. frequency, simulated by exploiting
CST (solid line) and FEKO (dotted line).

TABLE II
FOCUSING PARAMETERS OF FZ AND PH DIELECTRIC LENSES AT 229 GHz

Fig. 10. Experimental prototype of lens CFZf.3.45.

From (12), for mm and mm, a relative

resolution of 1.47 is calculated. It is found that both PH-ideal
and PH-real have very similar transverse resolutions.
In Table II the data for the new CFZf lens designs (CFZf.3.45
and CFZf.5.30) are written in bold.

E. Major Observations
From the research results produced some important observa- 1) Conical CFZ lenses (same apex, focal length and aper-
tions follow. ture size):

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KAMBUROV et al.: MILLIMETER-WAVE CONICAL FRESNEL ZONE LENS OF FLAT DIELECTRIC RINGS
i) The 45-deg flat-ring and conical-ring lenses
CFZf.3.45 and CFZc.3.45, correspondingly, fea-
ture very similar focusing characteristics (gain,
efficiency and resolution), but the first one has about
1.4 times bigger bandwidth. Along with this, the lens
CFZf.3.45 is around 1.2 times shorter and 1.4 times
lighter compared to the lens CFZc.3.45;
ii) With the change of cone opening semi-angle be-
tween 30 and 90 (plane FZ lens), the FZ lenses
change their physical and electromagnetic character-
istics considerably. For instance, the lens CFZf.5.30
has 2.2 dB bigger gain, about twice bigger aper-
ture efficiency, and 1.4 and 1.6 times higher trans-
verse and axial resolutions, respectively, than the lens
CFZf.3.45. However, the lens CFZf.5.30 is 1.8 times
thicker and has a 1.6 times narrower frequency band
than the lens CFZf.3.45.
2) Flat-r ing CFZ and PFZ lenses contr asted to PH lens
(same apex, focal length, and aper ture size):
i) The lens CFZf.5.30 has 2.6 dB and 4.5 dB bigger fo-
cusing gain, and 1.8 and 7 times higher aperture ef-
ficiency than lenses PH and PFZ.2, respectively. On
the other hand, the PH lens is a wideband focusing de-
vice and has more than 5 and 2.5 times bigger band-
width than the lenses CFZf.5.30 and PFZ.2, corre-
spondingly.
ii) The conical lens is advantageous for its very good 3D
imaging properties. A key benefit of the cone-shape
FZ lens is the very axial lens resolution . This
effect is due to its much smaller spherical aberra-
tion. On the average, CFZf.5.30 has around 6.5 times
better axial resolution than the lens PFZ.2 and lens
PH.
While PH and PFZ.2 lenses have a relative transverse
resolution equal to 1.42 and 1.24, respectively,
for the 30-deg lens CFZf.5.30 it goes up to 0.65.
Thus, the latter lens holds a much better, subwave-
length transverse resolution compared to all other
lenses studied here.
3) PFZ lens similar in focusing gain to CFZf.5.30 lens
(same apex and focal length but different aper ture size
and number of r ings):
The lens PFZ.2 has been redesigned to obtain a focusing
gain comparable to that of CFZf.5.30. This resulted in the
plane lens PFZ.4 slightly bigger focusing gain. However,
it is seen from both tables that the lens PFZ.4 is much
inferior to the lens CFZf.5.30 for the most other focusing
and physical characteristics: around 3.5 times in efficiency,
1.5 times in transverse resolution, and over 3 times in axial
resolution, 2 times in aperture area, and 1.7 times in weight.
The big superiority of CFZf.5.30 over PFZ.4 in aperture
size, focusing efficiency, and resolution is on account of
a tenfold increase in thickness (height), an extra ring, and
slight decrease in frequency bandwidth.
The physical and electromagnetic comparison between the
conical-ring lens and flat-ring lens shows that the greater ad-
vantages of the latter are mainly structural and technological.
Flat-ring cone-shape FZ lens is much easier to fabricate as a
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2147
planar multilayer package of flat dielectric rings by use of clas-
sical machining or modern lithographic, laser writing, inject
printing, etcetera technologies, applied for multilayer integra-
tion and packing in electronics and optics.
Based on the experience of this work, the following prospec-
tive suggestion can be formulated: except the conical FZ lens,
all other non-flat axially-rotational FZ lenses (parabolic,
spherical, etcetera) can be designed, studied, and fabricated by
exploiting the same simple constructive elements (flat rings),
method of analysis and fabrication technology.
IV. CONCLUSION
This study demonstrates the superior focusing and 3D-reso-
lution action of the flat-ring conical FZ lens over the planar FZ
lens and ordinary PH lens. The lens opening semi-angle change
greatly modifies its physical and electromagnetic characteris-
tics. For instance, the 30-deg lens CFZf.5.30 has roughly twice
bigger focusing gain and much superior 3D imaging proper-
ties (subwavelength transverse resolution and seven times better
axial resolution) compared to the corresponding PH lens. On
contrary, the PH lens is a wideband focusing device with a five-
fold bigger frequency bandwidth.
The flat-ring cone-shape FZ lens has an important structural
and technological advantage: it is easy to fabricate as a mul-
tilayer package of flat rings by use of classical machining or
modern photolithographic, laser writing or inject printing tech-
nology. In general, this key advantage might be applicable to
any non-flat axially-rotational Fresnel zone-lens surface.
REFERENCES
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lington, Apr. 9–10, 1985, vol. 544, pp. 41–47.
[2] J. E. Garrett and J. C. Wiltse, “Millimeter-wave characteristics of
phase-correcting Fresnel zone plate,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory
Tech., vol. 35, pp. 1123–1129, 1987.
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L. P. Kambur ov graduated from the St. Petersburg Baltic University, Russia,
in 1987 with the specialty “Radio Electronic Devices.” He received the Ph.D.
degree from the Technical University of Varna, Bulgaria, in 2013.
He is currently a Major Assistant Professor at the Department of Radio En-
gineering, Technical University of Varna, Bulgaria. His research areas are RF
electromagnetics, Fresnel zone plate lenses and antennas, microwave and qua-
sioptical circuits and devices.
J osé Miguel Rodr íguez (M’13) received the B.S. and M.Sc. degrees in elec-
tronics engineering from the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Marı́a, Val-
paraíso, Chile, in 2010 and 2012, respectively. He is currently working toward
the Ph.D. degree.
His research interests include high frequency electromagnetism, antennas,
microwave/millimeter-wave/terahertz devices, radiometry and radio-astronomy
instrumentation, quasioptics and wireless communications.
J . R. Ur umov (M’95) graduated from the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical Uni-
versity, Russia, in 1972 with the specialty “Design of Marine Radioelectronics.”
He received the Ph.D. degree from the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria,
in 1982.
In 1990, he became an Associate Professor at the Department of Radio En-
gineering, Technical University of Varna, Bulgaria. His research interests are in
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the high-frequency electromagnetics, antennas, microwave circuits, optoelec-
tronics and optical communications. He used to participate in a number of re-
search and applications projects in the areas of radar, mobile and satellite com-
munications antennas.
Hr isto D. Hr istov (SM’86–LSM’12) received the Ph.D. degree from the Tech-
nical University of Varna, Bulgaria, in 1973 and the D.Sc. degree in electrical
engineering from the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1987.
From 1965 to 1999, he served as an Assistant, Associate and Full Professor
at the Department of Radio Engineering, Technical University of Varna, Bul-
garia, where for many years he lead the RF Electromagnetics and Optoelec-
tronics Group. Since 2000, he is a Research Professor at the Universidad Téc-
nica Federico Santa Maria, Valparaíso, Chile. His main research interests in-
clude microwave/millimeter wave/terahertz antenna and propagation theory and
applications, antenna miniaturization, cavity-type passive and active antennas,
and Fresnel zone lenses and antennas. He specialized at Strathclyde University
and worked as a Researcher at Queen Mary College, London University, U.K.,
where he was engaged mainly with the microwave dielectric and cavity-type
antenna study. In 1993, he was granted a CEC EU contract for doing research
at Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands on Fresnel zone plate
antennas. He participated in COST-245 and COST-260 EU projects on antennas
for satellite and mobile communications. He was a short-term Visiting Professor
at several universities and research institutions in Europe and Japan. He is the
coauthor of Microwave Cavity Antennas (Artech House, 1989) and the author
of Fresnel Zones in Wireless Links, Zone Plate Lenses and Antennas (Artech
House, 2000), and a number of university textbooks. He supervised and partici-
pated in more than 40 research projects, and authored and coauthored more than
150 journal articles conference papers, research reports and patents.
Dr. Hristov was the co-organizer and served as the first chair of Bulgarian
IEEE Section and MTT/AP-S Chapter. He was awarded the IEEE Third Millen-
nium Medal (2000). He co-chaired the Focused Session on Fresnel Zone Plate
Lenses/Antennas during the 1999 IEEE Symposium on Antennas & Propaga-
tion, Orlando, FL. He served two terms (2005–2010) as an IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION Associate Editor.
08/05/2014 20:46