A Broadband Differential-Fed Dual-Polarized Hollow Cylindrical Dielectric Resonator Antenna for 5G Communications

A broadband differential-fed dual-polarized hollow cylindrical dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) is proposed in this article. It makes use of the HEM₁₁₁, HEM₁₁₃, and HEM₁₁₅ modes of the cylindrical hollow DRA. The proposed DRA is simply fed by two pairs of conducting strips and each pair of strips is provided with the out-of-phase signals. After introducing four disconnected air holes into the DRA, a broadband characteristic is achieved, with little effect on the antenna gain of its higher-order modes. To verify this idea, frosted K9-glass is applied to fabricate the hollow cylindrical DRA. The differential S-parameters, radiation patterns, and antenna gain of the DRA are studied. It is found that the proposed differential-fed dual-polarized DRA is able to provide a broad differential impedance bandwidth of ~68% and a high differential-port isolation better than ~46 dB. Moreover, symmetrical broadside radiation patterns are observed across the whole operating band. The proposed DRA covers the frequency bands including the 5G-n77 (3.4–4.2 GHz), 5G-n79 (4.4–5.0 GHz), WLAN-5.2 GHz (5.15–5.35 GHz), and WLAN-5.8 GHz (5.725–5.825 GHz), which can be used for 5G communications.