Low-Q Electrically Small Spherical Magnetic Dipole Antennas

Three novel electrically small antenna configurations radiating a TE10 spherical mode corresponding to a magnetic dipole are presented and investigated: multiarm spherical helix (MSH) antenna, spherical split ring resonator (S-SRR) antenna, and spherical split ring (SSR) antenna. All three antennas are self-resonant, with the input resistance tuned to 50 ohms by an excitation curved dipole/monopole. A prototype of the SSR antenna has been fabricated and measured, yielding results that are consistent with the numerical simulations. Radiation quality factors (Q) of these electrically small antennas (in all cases ka < 0.26) approach the limit of 3.0 times the Chu lower bound for a given antenna size, which is in line with a theoretical prediction made by Wheeler in 1958.