Electrically Small Multiferroic Antennas

ABSTRACT: We exploit recent advances in magnetoelectric/piezoelectric (ME/PE) composite materials to enable the development of efficient sub-wavelength radio frequency (RF) transmitting antennas. With these materials will be possible to achieve high dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability, slow electromagnetic propagation and low RF loss tangents. Together, these special properties make it possible to design electrically "short" antennas for applications where conventional antennas would be too large. Innovative use of DC fields generated by applying voltages to the ME/PE materials makes it possible to have antennas tune in frequency or to dynamically select radiation patterns. The resulting antennas will improve gain for small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other wireless systems. Wide-ranging applications to consumer wireless devices such as portable computers, data-enabled tablets and the like are also possible. BENEFIT: The development of sub-wavelength RF antennas with high gain, and their deployment on small UAVs and small wireless devices, will improve usable range and reduce RF transmitter load on system batteries.