Journal of Modern Mathematics Frontier Volume 3 Issue 3, September 2014

doi: 10.14355/jmmf.2014.0303.01

www.sjmmf.org

Analysis on Metamaterials Quasi Standard

Transmission Line Unit Cell by Software Tool
Cong Wang*1, Nam-Young Kim2
Department of Electronic Engineering, Kwangwoon University
447-1, Wolgye-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul 139-701, Republic of Korea
kevin_wang@kw.ac.kr; 2nykim@kw.ac.kr

*1

Abstract
A compact distributed metamaterials quasi standard
transmission lines unit cell is proposed in this paper. It
consists of interdigital capacitor and single or double spiral
inductor based on microstrip transmission lines. The area of
the unit cell is much reduced when compared with the
conventional microstrip metamaterials transmission lines.
The performance and the fundamental properties of the
conventional and the proposed unit cells are verified by 3D
planar electromagnetic (EM) simulation, and the electric size
is calculated and compared. Transmission lines including 10
proposed unit cells and the traditional transmission lines are
simulated by full 3D simulator. The forward and backward
waves in the left-handed band from the simulation
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed metamaterials
transmission lines unit cell.
Keywords
Metamaterials; Transmission Lines; Unit Cell; Interdigital
Capacitor; Spiral Inductor; Sonnet/CST Software Tools

Introduction
Metamaterials have attracted considerable attention
for many years because their unusual magnetic and
electric properties are generally not found in nature.
From the first evidences proved that materials with a
negative refractive index were indeed physically
realizable, numerous new devices or improvements of
existing devices have been reported in the microwave
and antenna fields. Metamaterials transmission lines
based on metamaterials, which is usually
implemented by periodically loading a host
transmission lines with series of capacitances and
shunt inductances and exhibits both the left-handed
(LH) and right-handed (RH) propagation bands. In
recent years, different microwave components based
on metamaterials have been developed and their
applications have been reported using metamaterials
transmission lines. When considering planar-type of
transmission lines, the coplanar waveguide (CPW)
and coplanar stripline (CPS) technology offer more

design freedom, several kinds of topologies of

metamaterials transmission lines based on them have
been realized. However, in microstrip technology
there are seldom new topologies are reported after the
first classic one from UCLA group.
In this paper, compact distributed microstrip
metamaterials transmission lines unit cell using
interdigital capacitor and spiral inductor is proposed.
Single spiral and double spiral inductors are
introduced to replace the classic shorted stub inductor.
The whole metamaterials transmission lines can be
made totally in the traditional transmission lines area,
and no expanded size is needed any more. Firstly,
both the conventional unit cell and the proposed unit
cell are verified by Sonnets 3D planar EM simulator
for comparing. The performance and the fundamental
properties of the unit cell are then analyzed and
presented. And the unit cell with double spiral
inductor are also studied and compared with the unit
cell with the single spiral inductor. Finally, the
transmission lines including 10 proposed unit cells
and the traditional transmission lines is evaluated by
the full 3D CST simulator. The observed forward wave
and backward wave in the left-handed band
demonstrate the operation of the proposed
metamaterials transmission lines unit cell.
Unit Cell Analysis by Sonnet Software Tool
The proposed metamaterials transmission lines unit
cell based on the interdigital capacitor and single or
double spiral inductor are shown in the Fig. 1 (b) and
(c). For comparison, the classic metamaterials
transmission lines unit cell is also recalled in Fig. 1 (a),
which is based on interdigital capacitor and shorted
stub inductor. The Sonnets 3D planar EM software
(version 12.56) is used for evaluation in this section.
The characteristics of the unit cell can be analyzed by
Bloch wave approach based on the simulation results.
The Bloch impedance ZB and Bloch propagation

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Journal of Modern Mathematics Frontier Volume 3 Issue 3, September 2014

constant can be calculated. In the case of reciprocal

unit cells, these two quantities can be deduced from
transmission matrix (ABCD matrix) of the unit cell of
the structure by using the equations

d cosh 1 A

(1)

ZB B C

(2)

where d is the length of the unit cell. On the other

hand, in the conventional positive-refractive-index
(PRI) transmission lines, the phase lags in the direction
of positive group velocity, thus incurring a negative
phase. However in the negative-refractive-index (NRI)
transmission lines, the phase is just reversed. So the
phase value of S21 shows another insight of the nature
of metamaterials. The electric size of the unit cell in
terms of the guided wavelength in the host
transmission lines at the transition frequency is
defined as
r d Ig

(3)

We firstly evaluated the classic metamaterials

transmission lines unit cell. The reported classic unit
cell was implemented on Rogers TR/Duroid 5880 with
dielectric constant r = 2.2 and thickness h = 1.57 mm
as report in reference. The unit cell period is 11.4 mm,
stub length is 10.9 mm, stub width is 1 mm,
interdigital finger length is 10.2 mm, interdigital finger
width is 0.3 mm, and spacing between the fingers is
0.2 mm. The simulated S21 result is shown in Fig. 2,
which is matched to the reported data in reference.

FIG. 1 MICROSTRIP METAMATERIALS TRANSMISSION LINES

UNIT CELL OF (A) CLASSIC STRUCTRURE, (B) THE PROPOSED
UNIT CELL USING SINGLE SPIRAL INDUCTORS, AND (C) THE
PROPOSED UNIT CELL USING DOUBLE SPIRAL INDUCTOR

We can see the zero phase point of the S21 is located at

2.4 GHz from Fig. 2. That means at this frequency the
right hand transmission lines and the left hand
transmission lines are just compensate for each other.
Left hand band is lower than this transient frequency,
which corresponds the positive phase of S21. And the
right hand band is higher than this transient frequency,
which corresponds the conventional negative phase of

46

S21. The calculated homogeneity factor based on

equation (3) is 0.136. The Bloch impedance ZB
calculation can be directly realized in the Sonnet
software by the user defined equations. In the lower
left hand band impedance is about 40 Ohm which is
not perfectly matching to the required 50 Ohm Bloch
impedance and the higher right hand band impedance
is about 54 Ohm which is a much better matching. The
calculated image parts in both the left and right hand
band are almost zero, which is very useful for the
request of the proposed design.

FIG. 2 THE S21 RESULTS OF THE CLASSIC METAMATERIALS

TRANSMISSION LINES UNIT CELL

FIG. 3 THE S21 RESULTS OF THE PROPOSED METAMATERIALS

TRANSMISSION LINES UNIT CELL USING SINGLE INDUCTOR

In order to compare with the classic metamaterials

transmission lines, the proposed metamaterials unit
cell is studied based on the same microstrip substrate
and almost the same character of the interdigital
capacitor part is used in the proposed metamaterials
unit cell. Firstly, the scattering parameters of the
interdigital capacitor and spiral inductor are
determined by full-wave Sonnet simulation,
respectively. For the interdigital capacitor, we extract
the serial capacitance from the Y21 of Y parameters. For

Journal of Modern Mathematics Frontier Volume 3 Issue 3, September 2014

the spiral inductor, we extract the shunt inductance

from the Y11 of Y parameters. The detailed S21
parameter results are shown in Fig. 3. From Fig. 3 it is
noted that the realized transition frequency is located
at 2 GHz, which is smaller than the classic one using
short stub. The Bloch impedance is also calculated by
equation (2). In the lower left hand band impedance is
about 48 Ohm and in the higher right hand band
impedance is around 56 Ohm which is a little better
matching than the classic one. The calculated
homogeneity factor of the proposed unit cell is 0.146
which is similar to the classic unit cell, but the
proposed metamaterials transmission lines is no
extended short stub to form a quasi standard
trasmission lines as shown in Fig. 4. The total area of
the proposed metamaterials transmission lines are
much saved when compared to the classic ones. The
detailed parameters of the designed metamaterials
quasi standard transmission lines unit cell are shown
in Fig. 5.

www.sjmmf.org

or
microelectromechanical
systems
(MEMS)
technology to reduce the effect of the insertion loss of
both the magnitude and phase.
Metamaterials TML Simulation
In order to more effectively demonstrate the proposed
metamaterial transmission lines unit cell, transmission
lines including 10 proposed unit cells using the spiral
inductor and the traditional transmission lines plotted
in Fig. 5 is simulated by full 3D CST simulator.
Theoretically in the left-handed band, the backward
wave should be seen in the metamaterials unit cells
part, and the forward wave should be seen in the
traditional transmission lines part. The Snapshots of
the simulated distributions of y-component of the
magnetic field in the connected right-handed
transmission lines and left-handed transmission lines
at different time instants are plotted and shown in the
Fig. 7. The phenomenon is well matched with the
theory, which further confirms the proposed
metamaterials transmission lines unit cell.

FIG. 4 THE UNIT CELL OF THE CLASSIC (LEFT) AND THE

PROPOSED (RIGHT) COMPOSITE RIGHT/LEFT-HANDED
TRANSMISSION LINE
0.3
0.2

11

0.6

0.3

0.3

1.7

0.7

0.7

unit : mm

2
2.7

FIG. 6 THE S21 RESULTS OF THE PROPOSED METAMATERIALS

TRANSMISSION LINES UNIT CELL USING DOUBLE SPIRAL
INDUCTOR

FIG. 5 THE COMPOSITE RIGHT/LEFT-HANDED TRANSMISSION

LINE UNIT CELL WITH THE DETAILED PARAMETER VALUES

The unit cell with the double spiral inductor as shown

in Fig. 1 (c) is also studied for comparing with the unit
cell with the single spiral inductor. The zero phase
point of the S21 is further move to the lower frequency,
which means the total area of the unit cell may be
further reduced as shown in Fig. 6. However the
double spiral structure introduces the more losses
compared with the normal single spiral structure. For
gigahertz application, the single spiral inductor is
more easily to design and realize. For requirement of
more compact size, the double spiral structure may be
used with low temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC)

FIG. 7 SNAPSHOTS OF SIMULATED DISTRIBUTIONS OF YCOMPONENT OF THE MAGNETIC FIELD IN THE CONNECTED
RIGHT-HANDED TRANSMISSION LINES AND LEFT-HANDED
TRANSMISSION LINES AT DIFFERENT TIME INSTANTS

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Journal of Modern Mathematics Frontier Volume 3 Issue 3, September 2014

Conclusion

pp. 1306-1311, September 2006.

A compact new distributed metamaterials quasi

standard transmission lines unit cell based on the
microstrip technology is proposed. Spiral inductor is
introduced in the unit cell for replacing the classic
short stub inductor to greatly reduce the total unit cell
area. Numerical simulations are carried out to validate
the proposed unit cell and compare the performance
with the classic unit cell. The phenomenon of
backward wave is also observed from the result of the
full 3D simulation. It will be very useful in system on
chip (SOP) and system in package (SIP) for some novel
applications by considering this proposed compact
metamaterial transmission lines topology.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work was supported by a grant supported from

Korean government (MEST) No. 2012R1A1A2004366
and (MSIP) No. 2014R1A1A1005901. This work was
also supported by a Research Grant of Kwangwoon
University in 2014.
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vol. 1, no.1, pp. 50-55, February 2007.
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S. G. Mao, M. S. Wu, Y. Z. Chueh, and C. H. Chen.

Modeling of symmetric composite right/left-handed
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Cong Wang was born in Qingdao, China in 1982. He
received the B.S. degree in Automation Engineering from
Qingdao Technological University (China) in 2005, the M.S.
and Ph. D. degrees in Electronic Engineering from
Kwangwoon University (Korea) in 2008 and 2011
respectively. He is currently working at the same university
as an assistant professor. He has published more than 110
papers in domestic and international journals and
conferences. He is listed in Marquis Whos Who in the
World, 28th Edition (2010) for his outstanding contribution
in his own field as a researcher and educator. He also has a
few semiconductor layout design patents registered in
Korea. His major interests include RFIC/MMIC design and
semiconductor fabrication development such as GaAs
integrated passive device, SU-8 photo resist based
fabrication, silicon-based LED module fabrication and
packaging, and AlGaN/GaN HEMT and their applications
which are emerging technologies of today.
Nam-Young Kim has received two Masters and two Ph.D.
degrees from State University of New York at Buffalo and
Midwest University: the M.S. and the Ph.D. in Electronic
Engineering. He has also received M. Div and D.C.E. degrees
in Theology from Midwest University in 2004 and 2006,
respectively. He was a research scientist for CEEM at SUNY
at Buffalo in 1994. After completing his research at CEEM at
SUNY at Buffalo, Dr. Kim joined the Department of
Electronic Engineering of Kwangwoon University as an
assistant professor in 1994. His main research focus is in
RFIC devices and systems, which use wireless application
techniques in order to develop high speed structures in
GaAs, Si, and other materials. During his career, he has
published almost 120 refereed journal papers and 355
refereed conference papers. Dr. Kim has been issued more
than 40 patents and 35 semiconductor design patents. His
research fields are in the areas of semiconductor device
modeling, ASIC, RFIC and MMIC design.