Compact Circularly Polarized Patch Antenna Using a Composite Right/Left-Handed Transmission Line Unit-Cell

A compact circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna using a composite right/left-handed (CRLH) transmission line (TL) unit-cell is proposed. The CRLH TL unit-cell includes a complementary split ring resonator (CSRR) for shunt inductance and a gap loaded with a circular-shaped slot for series capacitance. The CSRR can decrease the TM10 mode resonance frequency, thus reducing the electrical size of the proposed antenna. In addition, the asymmetry of the CSRR brings about the TM01 mode, which can be combined with the TM10 mode by changing the slot radius. The combination of these two orthogonal modes with 90° phase shift makes the proposed antenna provide a CP property. The experimental results show that the proposed antenna has a wider axial ratio bandwidth and a smaller electrical size than the reported CP antennas. Moreover, the proposed antenna is designed without impedance transformer, 90° phase shift, dual feed and ground via