Broadband Cross-Slotted Patch Antenna for 5G Millimeter-Wave Applications Based on Characteristic Mode Analysis

This article proposes a wideband differentially-fed dual-polarized magnetoelectric (ME) dipole for millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) applications. Various electric and magnetic characteristic modes of a slotted patch antenna are investigated and utilized effectively to create a stable broadside radiation pattern covering 5G frequency bands from 24.25 GHz to 40 GHz. To implement this the lifted ground (LGND) concept is applied to achieve a 57.1% impedance bandwidth for a single antenna element. Additionally the three resonances of the antenna can be manipulated independently. The use of differential feeding allows more than 36 dB of port-to-port isolation across the entire operating band. The measured gains of the single element and 2×2 array are 8.4 dBi and 13.4 dBi respectively. Also the measured results indicate symmetrical E- and H-plane radiation patterns and cross-polarization levels lower than –26 dB.With the favorable electrical performance compact size simple structure and low-cost fabrication the proposed ME dipole is a promising candidate for mm-Wave Antenna-in-Package (AiP) applications.