ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the potential applications of metamaterials to microwave patch and leaky-wave antennas. It provides a brief overview of the adopted terminology and presents the physical mechanisms responsible for the novel features that metamaterial antennas may provide in terms of potentially superior performances over conventional radiators. The chapter describes the design of patch antennas and leaky-wave antennas loaded with metamaterials, giving some numerical examples. It discusses the possible practical implementation of these antennas with real-life metamaterial inclusions. The chapter examines the design methods to obtain miniaturized antennas based on the employment of metamaterials. Similar design consideration may be applied to the case of cylindrical antennas supporting leaky-modes. Metamaterial-inspired antennas are all those radiators obtained by applying the metamaterial concepts but that in reality consist of regular antennas loaded with few metallic inclusions. The chapter deals with miniaturized antennas, it is evident that the corresponding applications are inherently narrowband.
