Slotted Ground Structures and Their Applications to Various Microwave Components

This thesis discusses microstrip circuits and components with a slotted area on the ground plane. In recent years, various slot geometries have been placed on the ground plane with the purpose of reducing harmonics, producing frequency pass/stop-bands, and enhancing coupling effects. Among several ground slot geometries, a dumbbell shaped slot (DSS) is attractive because of its simple structure and easy analysis. The DSS and its applications to RF/microwave filters are studied and discussed. A lumped equivalent circuit model of the dumbbell shaped ground slot is introduced by utilizing resonator and filter theories. The accuracy of the equivalent circuit model is demonstrated through the comparison of circuit simulations and measurements. A lowpass filter (LPF) using slotted ground structure (SGS) with dumbbell shape is designed and measured to validate its theories. By using SGS techniques presented in this thesis, some other RF/microwave components such as a periodic structure, ultra-wideband bandpass filter (UWB-BPF), and rectenna with SGS-LPF are designed and tested.