The present application claims priority to Chinese patent application No. 202010594132.7, filed on Jun. 28, 2020, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present disclosure relates to the field of communication technologies, and in particular to a slot antenna and a communication device.
A radial line slot antenna has advantages of small loss of a waveguide slot array, a simple structure of a microstrip antenna, and a low section, and thus is widely applied to microwave systems such as a millimeter wave system. Generally, the radial line slot antenna includes an upper metal plate and a lower metal plate with a distance therebetween less than ½ of a wavelength, to form a radial waveguide, and includes designed slots formed in the upper metal plate, thereby achieving any polarization mode or radiation characteristic.
Some embodiments of the present disclosure provide a slot antenna and a communication device including the slot antenna.
A first aspect of the present disclosure provides a slot antenna, which includes:
a dielectric layer having a first surface and a second surface opposite to each other;
a radiation layer on the first surface of the dielectric layer, and having a plurality of slots therein; and
a first shielding layer on the second surface of the dielectric layer, and electrically connected to the radiation layer.
In an embodiment, the slot antenna has a radiation region and a peripheral region surrounding the radiation region;
the dielectric layer includes a first sub-dielectric layer and a second sub-dielectric layer, a surface of the first sub-dielectric layer distal to the second sub-dielectric layer serves as the first surface of the dielectric layer, and a surface of the second sub-dielectric layer distal to the first sub-dielectric layer serves as the second surface of the dielectric layer; and the slot antenna further includes a second shielding layer between the first sub-dielectric layer and the second sub-dielectric layer and within the radiation region.
In an embodiment, the slot antenna has a radiation region and a peripheral region surrounding the radiation region, at least one through hole penetrating through the dielectric layer is arranged in the peripheral region, and the radiation layer is electrically connected to the first shielding layer through the at least one through hole penetrating through the dielectric layer.
In an embodiment, the at least one through hole includes a plurality of through holes, and the plurality of through holes are uniformly arranged around the radiation region.
In an embodiment, the plurality of slots are arranged in a plurality of loops, a distance between any adjacent two of the slots in each loop is a fixed value, and a distance between any adjacent two of the plurality of loops is a fixed value.
In an embodiment, the plurality of slots are arranged in a spiral line, and a distance between any adjacent two of the slots in a direction in which the plurality of slots are arranged is a fixed value.
In an embodiment, the slot antenna further includes a feeding element for feeding an electromagnetic wave signal into the dielectric layer, wherein a feeding point of the feeding element is on a central axis of the slot antenna.
In an embodiment, a material of the dielectric layer includes at least one of glass and quartz.
In an embodiment, a thickness of the dielectric layer has a positive correlation with a wavelength of an electromagnetic wave to be transmitted by the slot antenna.
In an embodiment, the dielectric layer has a thickness between 100 μm and 10 mm.
In an embodiment, a material of each of the radiation layer and the first shielding layer includes a metal.
In an embodiment, the metal includes at least one of copper, gold, and silver.
In an embodiment, a thickness of the dielectric layer is equal to a sum of a thickness of the first sub-dielectric layer and a thickness of the second sub-dielectric layer, and has a positive correlation with a wavelength of an electromagnetic wave to be transmitted by the slot antenna.
In an embodiment, the slot antenna has a shape of a cylinder or a cube, the feeding element is on a central axis of the cylinder or the cube, and the dielectric layer surrounds the feeding element.
In an embodiment, the feeding element is in the second sub-dielectric layer.
In an embodiment, an edge of the second shielding layer is spaced apart from the peripheral region.
In an embodiment, each of the plurality of loops is a circle, and the plurality of loops are concentric circles.
In an embodiment, a starting point of the spiral line is on a central axis of the slot antenna.
In an embodiment, each of the plurality of slots has an L-shape or an I-shape.
A second aspect of the present disclosure provides a communication device, which includes the slot antenna according to any one of the foregoing embodiments of the first aspect of the present disclosure.
To enable one of ordinary skill in the art to better understand technical solutions of the present disclosure, the present disclosure will be further described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and exemplary embodiments.
Unless defined otherwise, technical or scientific terms used herein should have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which the present disclosure belongs. The terms of “first”, “second”, and the like herein are not intended to indicate any order, quantity, or importance, but rather are used for distinguishing one element from another. Further, the terms of “a”, “an”, “the”, or the like used herein does not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one element. The term of “comprising”, “including”, or the like, means that the element or item preceding the term contains the element or item listed after the term and the equivalent thereof, but does not exclude the presence of other elements or items. The terms “connected”, “coupled”, and the like are not limited to physical or mechanical connections, but may include electrical connections, whether direct or indirect connections. The terms “upper”, “lower”, “left”, “right”, and the like are used only for indicating relative positional relationships, and when the absolute position of an object being described is changed, the relative positional relationships may also be changed accordingly.
The inventors of the present inventive concept have found that, although an efficiency of the radial line slot antenna is increased as a size thereof is increased, a processing mode for the metal waveguide may result in significant deformation in large-area manufacturing, thereby having an influence on a distance between radial waveguides. In addition, as an operating frequency of the radial line slot antenna is increased, a size of each slot of the radial line slot antenna for radiating a signal (e.g., an electromagnetic wave) outward and a distance between two adjacent slots of the radial line slot antenna may be further reduced, such that a machining process cannot meet the design requirements.
At least to solve the above technical problems, some embodiments of the present disclosure provide a slot antenna (e.g., a radial line slot antenna) and a communication device including the slot antenna.
It should be noted that a structure of the slot antenna according to embodiments of the present disclosure includes, but is not limited to, a cylinder, a rectangular parallelepiped, a cube, and the like. In the following description of the embodiments, the structure of the slot antenna as a cylinder is generally described. In an embodiment of the present disclosure, a material of a dielectric layer of the slot antenna includes, but is not limited to, glass, i.e., the dielectric layer may be a glass dielectric layer. Actually, the material of the dielectric layer may be any insulating material such as quartz that is suitable for forming a planar surface structure. The following embodiments will be described by taking an example in which the dielectric layer is a glass dielectric layer, but this is not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure.
In a first aspect,
The dielectric layer of the slot antenna according to the present embodiment adopts a glass substrate, i.e., the dielectric layer is the glass dielectric layer 10. It should be noted that glass has a high dielectric constant (i.e., a permittivity), and thus can significantly reduce a dielectric wavelength of an electromagnetic wave. A size (e.g., a thickness Td) of the glass dielectric layer 10 in a stacking direction (i.e., the vertical direction in
In an example, the glass dielectric layer 10 of the slot antenna is a single-layer structure, as shown in
In another example,
In the slot antenna with such a structure, there is no electrical connection between the second shielding layer 60 and any through hole 40, and the second shielding layer 60 mainly serves to uniformly distribute the an electromagnetic wave fed into the glass dielectric layer 10. For example, the electromagnetic wave fed by the feeding element 50 enters the second sub-dielectric layer 12 firstly, and next propagates from a central axis of the second sub-dielectric layer 12 to the second shielding layer 60 along a longitudinal direction of the slot antenna (e.g., a direction from the position of the feeding element 50 to a midpoint of the first surface (i.e., the upper surface) of the dielectric layer 10 in
In some embodiments, the radiation layer 20 has a plurality of slots 21 therein, and the plurality of slots 21 are arranged in a plurality of loops (or turns). The slots 21 in each loop are uniformly spaced apart from each other, and a distance between any adjacent two of the plurality of loops is a constant, as shown for example in
It should be noted that, a shape of each of the slots 21 is not limited in an embodiment of the present disclosure. In an example, each of the slots 21 may have an L-shape, an I-shape, or the like.
In addition, the plurality of loops (of the slots 21) are concentrically arranged as concentric circles, concentric squares, or the like, and a feeding point of the feeding element 50 is arranged at a center of the plurality of loops (of the slots 21), thereby allowing an electromagnetic wave to be radiated more uniformly.
In some embodiments, the radiation layer 20 has a plurality of slots 21 therein, and the plurality of slots 21 are arranged in a spiral shape (or a spiral line); further, a distance between any adjacent two of the slots 21 (e.g., a distance between centers of any adjacent two of the slots 21) is a constant in an arrangement direction of the slots 21 (i.e., in a direction in which the slots 21 are arranged), as shown in
In some embodiments, the feeding point of the feeding element 50 is located at a center of radiating region Q1 to facilitate uniform radiation of an electromagnetic wave. For example, the center of the radiation region Q1 overlaps a common center of the concentrically arranged multiple loops (of the slots 21) or overlaps a starting point of the spiral line formed by the slots 21, in the stacking direction. For example, the feeding point, at which a signal is fed into the slot antenna by the feeding element 50, of the feeding element 50 is located on the central axis of the slot antenna, as shown in
In some embodiments, the thickness Td of the glass dielectric layer 10 is between 100 μm and 10 mm. For example, the thickness Td of the glass dielectric layer 10 depends on a dielectric constant of the glass dielectric layer 10 and the operating frequency of the slot antenna. For example, the slot antenna may have a plurality of operating frequencies, which may form a frequency band. In this case, the thickness Td of the glass dielectric layer 10 may be positively correlated with a center frequency of the operating band of the slot antenna. For example, the slot antenna may transmit a signal with a frequency in a high frequency band, such as in a millimeter wave band or even a terahertz band.
In some embodiments, the feeding element 50 may be a probe. As shown in
In some embodiments, each of the first shielding layer 30, the second shielding layer 30, and the radiation layer 20 is made of a metal, which may include, but is not limited to, a metal having a small resistance and a low signal loss, such as copper, gold, silver, or the like. In addition, each of the first shielding layer 30, the second shielding layer 30, and the radiation layer 20 may be formed by using magnetron sputtering, thermal evaporation, electroplating, or the like. Further, the metal filled in each through hole 40 may include, but is not limited to, the metal having a small resistance and a low signal loss, such as copper, gold, silver, or the like.
In a second aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a communication device including the slot antenna according to any one of the foregoing embodiments. The communication device may have the same advantageous effects as those of the slot antenna, and detailed description thereof is omitted here.
It should be noted that the foregoing embodiments of the present disclosure may be combined with each other in a case of no significant conflict.
It should be understood that the above embodiments are merely exemplary embodiments adopted to explain the principles of the present disclosure, and the present disclosure is not limited thereto. It will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that various changes and modifications can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure, and such changes and modifications also fall within the scope of the present disclosure.
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