Complex shaped periodic corrugations for broadband Bull's Eye antennas

Periodically corrugated metallic antennas have been developed in recent years from microwave to THz frequencies, due to their advantages of highly directive radiation patterns, low profile and ease of fabrication. However, the limited gain bandwidth of such antennas remains one of their inherent disadvantages. In terms of design, the majority of the existing implementations in literature utilize the standard rectangular shaped corrugated unit cell. In this paper, we propose novel complex shaped corrugated unit cells that produce a broadband performance when assembled in a periodic configuration. Two broadband prototypes are presented at the Ku frequency band that are formed of hybrid shaped corrugations. The first prototype of six periodic rings achieves, for the first time, a flat gain simulated response with a maximum value of 15.7 dBi, 1-dB gain bandwidth of 16.4%, and an extended 3-dB gain bandwidth of 19.64%. The second novel prototype of five rings achieves an enhanced 3-dB gain bandwidth of 15.2% and maximum gain of 18.1 dBi.