358 TRANSACTIONS

IEEE ANTENNAS
ON AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-31, NO. 2, MARCH 1 9 8 3

Equation (29), therefore,

can
written
be the
form
in and

- -
ce
The relation between and Em according to (2) is -
-L
1 - E X R ) = Em2(E, El). (42)
G e l =-p [V X G m 2 -j6(R-E’)]. (3 3)
These symmetrical relations, of course, can be proved without
knowing theexplicit expressions for these functions.
In view of (32): we obtain
-
- 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Gel=, [(BX~,)U,+(BX~i2)U---~6(R-R’)],
k relation
dyadic
The
theuse of (30) in this work is prompted
by a recent work of Dr. P. H. Pathak, where a similar relation in
(34) the vector level was used t o discuss the dyadic Green’s function
where for a waveguide. The communication from Dr. Pathak for a pre-
publication copy of his paper is gratefully acknowledged.
Coofieoo(~k~~oo(Tk)
REFERENCES
[I] C. T. Tai,“Eigenfunctionexpansion of dyadicGreen’sfunctions,”
Air Force Weapons Lab., Kirtland Air Force Base, NM, Math. Note
28, July 1973.
[2] C. T. Tai, Dyadic Green’s
Functions in Electromagnetic
Theory. Scranton, PA: Intext,1971.
(35) [3] C. T.Tai and P. Rozenfeld, “Different
representations of dyadic
Green’s functions for a rectangular cavity,” IEEE Trans. Microwave
Theor). Tech., vol. MTT-24, pp. 597-601, Sept. 1976.
Following the same procedure,
it can be shown that [4] W . A. Johnson, A. Q . Howard, and D. G. Dudley, “On the irrotational
component of the electric Green’s dyadic,” Radio Sci., vol. 14, pp.
(36) 961-967.Nov.1979.
[5] M. Abramovits and I. A. Stegun, Handbook of MathematicalFunc-
with rions. Washington, DC: NationalBureau of Standards, U.S. Gov-
- ernment Printing Offlce, 1964. p. 374.

(37)
Effect of Substrate Thickness on the Performance of a
Circular-Disk Microstrip Antenna
and J. S . DAHELE AND KAI F. LEE, SENIOR MEMBER, IEEE

Abstracr-The effect of substrate thickness on the characteristics of a

circular-disk microstrip antenna is examined. In the literature this effect
has beendealtwiththeoretically,butexperimentalresultsexplicitly
showing the effect of substrate thickness on resonant frequency, input
with impedance, and bandwidth do notseem to be readily available.

INTRODUCTION
The basic geometry of the circular-disk microstrip antenna is
shown in Fig. l(a), while Fig. l(b) shows the electric field at the
edge of the disk. The parallel-plate effect between the disk and
the ground plane causes the fringing field to extend beyond the
edge of the disk. This increases the capacitance between the disk
(39) and the ground plane, resulting in the lowering of the resonant
frequency. The effect of the additional capacitance due to the
Thiscompletesour derivation forthe various dyadic Green’s fringing field can be accounted €or byintroducingan effective
functions for a coaxial line. From these explicit expressions it is radius for the disk which is larger than its physical radius [ l ] .
seen that
Manuscript received August9, 1982.
=w R’)
Ge (R’, R)= l(z,
The authors are with the Department of Electronics, The Chinese Uni-
versity of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong.

0018-926X/83/03004358$01.00 0 1983 IEEE

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION,VOL. AP-31, NO. 2, MARCH 1983 359
300

i" RgXchl
1
200

100

E !

(bl
Fig. 1. (a) Microstrip circular disk geometry. (b) Electric field at edge of
circular disk.

The resonant frequency of the disk is given by

-lo( 3 -

where
For the fundamental mode
K,2,m =IC,, = 1.84118
8.791 X IO3
.: f , =
re ff VG
where f, is in megahertz and reff is in centimeters.
The value off, in (1) is accurate to within 2.5 percent, pro-
vided r/f > 1 [ l ] . As the resonant frequency decreases, the disk
radius increases so that, for a normal range of values of r, r/t 9 1
and reff approaches r. This has led to the assumption that below
2 GHz the effect of substrate thickness on resonant frequency is
negligible [ I ] . However, this assumption is not supported by our
experimental results which show that even below 1 GHz this ef-
fect is not negligible. Moreover, our resultsshow that substrate
thickness also has a significant effect on the input impedance and
bandwidth.
Inthisexperimentalstudy we examinethree circular-disk
microstrip antennas, with substrate thicknesst = 0.318 cm. 0.159
cm? and 0.08 cm. The disks are identical in all other respects. The
disks are etched on RT/Duroid 5870 material with relative per-
mittivity of 2.32. The copper backing is retained and forms the
ground plane. 411 disks have a radius of 6.8 cm, and the coaxial
feed is located 6.5 ctn fromthecenter.Thisfeedposition is
chosen in order to obtain a large radiationresistance [2]. The
disks are mounted on separate base plates and positioned accurately
with locating pins. The feed consists of an omni spectra miniature
(OSM) connector mounted underneath the base plate. The center
Fig. 2. Real part (I?)and imaginary part (X)of input impedance as func-
tion of frequency with t as parameter.
conductor of the feed first passes through a hole in thebase plate
to form a SO-L2 line. It then passes through the substrate and is
soldered to the surface of the disk.
Theinputimpedanceofeach diskismeasured witha GR
admittance meter, and its value is referred to a short circuit plane
coincident with the copper ground plane. Our measurements are
confined to a frequency range below 1 GHz, the frequency being
read directly from theoscillator scale.
DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
For each disk the input impedance is measured as a function
of frequency, and the results for t = 0.318 cm, 0.159 cm, and
0.08 cm are shown in Fig. 2. The H-plane radiation patternsmeas-
ured at the resonant frequency of each disk are shown in Fig. 3.
From Fig. 2 we note that ast decreases, the resonant frequency
increases, the bandwidth decreases, and both the real and imagi-
nary parts of the input impedance decrease. The relationship be-
tween the increase in resonant frequency and the decrease in sub-
strate thickness i s not linear; the frequency shift is larger when t
decreases from 0.318 cm to 0.159 cm comparedwiththe case
when t decreases from 0.159 cm to 0.08 cm. This behavior agrees
with the results calculated from (1) as shown in Table I, wheref,
is the resonant frequency and 4f, is the difference between the
resonant frequencies corresponding to t = 0.08 cm and 0.159 cm
and f = 0.159 cm and 0.318 cm.
Theseresultsshow that the effect of substratethicknesson
the resonant frequency is not negligible. Given the narrow band-
width of these antennas, it is importanttochoosethecorrect
value of t. It is clear from Fig. 2 that with our particular geometry,
a designerrequiring an antennaat829 MHz mustchoose f =
0.159 cm. Choosing t = 0.08 cm and t = 0.318 cm will reduce
360 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. AP-31, NO. 2, MARCH 1 9 8 3

Fig. 3. H-plane radiation patterns with t as parameter.

TABLE I disk microstripantenna. Theseresults showthat even below 1

Calculated Measured
GHz this effect significantly alters the resonant frequency, band-
t cm f r MHz A f r MHz f r MHz Af? MHz width, and impedance of the antenna. The general trend of our
results is in agreement with theoretical predictions. However, we
0.08 840 8 35 note that as t changes from 0.159 to0.08 cm, the inputresistance
I 6
is reduceddrastically, while thetheorypredictsa negligible
0.159 833
12 14 change below 1 GHz.
0.318 821 8 15
REFERENCES
[I] I. J . Bahl and P. Bhartia, Microstrip Anrennas. Artech House, 1980,
the radiation resistance by a factor of about four and ten, re- ch. 3.
[21 S. A. Long, L. C. Shen, M. D. Walton, and M . R. Allerding,
spectively. “Impedance of a circular-disc printed-circuit antenna,” Elecrron.
In order to comparethebandwidth (BW) corresponding to Lett., vol. 14, pp. 684-686,1978.
different values of substrate thickness, we define
v - f ~ x 100
BW = f- percent,
f, Far-Field Radiation Patternsof Elliptical Apertures and
where f u and fL are the upper and lower frequencies at which the Its Annulli
real part of the input impedance falls to half its peak value. Our
results show that corresponding to t = 0.08,0.159, and 0.318 cm Y.P. KATHURIA
the bandwidth is 1.2, 1.6, and 2 percent, respectively. This agrees
with the trend shown by the theoretical predictions [ l ] . On the Absnacr-A Fourier transform technique is applied to derive expres-
other hand, our results show a greater change in the real part of sions for the diffraction field due to elliptical apertures and its annulli.
the input impedance for different values o f t than is predicted by Perspective plots of the intensity distribution diagrams are generated for
various values of the asis ratio with the help of an IBhi-370/168 com-
theory [ l ] particularly when t changes from 0.159 to 0.08 cm.
I
puter. All possible cases are discussed briefly.
In fact, below 1 GHz the theory predicts a negligible change in
radiation resistance for the three values of r considered here. I. INTRODUCTION
In Fig. 3 we show the H-plane radiation patterns for different
values of t , with each disk operating at its resonant frequency and The problem of determining the field radiated by an elliptical
with the peak field strength normalized at 0 = 0. Theseresults aperture has received much attention recently [ 11-[3]. In most
confirm the impedance measurementsshown in Fig. 2. of these treatments the analysis is based on different techniques
which either impose few limitations on the method used [l] or
CONCLUSION
Manuscript received February 26, 1982.
We have presented experimental results which demonstrate the The author iswith the Institute for Applied Physics, Schlossgarten-
effect of substrate thickness on the characteristics of a circular- strasse-7,6100 TH Darnstadt. Federal Republic of Germany.

0018-926X/83/0300~360S01.000 1983 IEEE