Broadband low-loss metamaterial-enabled horn antennas

Metamaterial surfaces have been shown to possess a wide range of uses in recent years, with many applications showing possible benefits from new ways to manipulate electromagnetic waves. While there are a variety of applications that would most benefit from broadband, non-dispersive material properties, some applications, including horn antennas for satellite reflector feeds, actually require careful engineering of dispersive properties over broad bandwidths for optimal operation. Metamaterial horn antennas have been created that take advantage of engineered dispersion and other properties to enable antenna operation over octave bandwidths with negligible intrinsic losses. These metasurface-enabled horn antennas promise to provide comparable or better operation than 46conventional alternatives, such as corrugated or dielectric core (dielcore) horns, while reducing weight, reducing cost, or improving operating bandwidths.