2046 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 64, NO. 5, MAY 2016
A Tri-Band, Highly Selective, Bandpass FSS Using
Cascaded Multilayer Loop Arrays
Mingbao Yan, Jiafu Wang, Hua Ma, Mingde Feng, Yongqiang Pang,
Shaobo Qu, Jieqiu Zhang, and Lin Zheng
Abstract—A highly selective tri-band bandpass frequency-selective
surface (FSS) is pr esented by cascading three layers of periodic arrays.
The middle layer is composed of double square loops (DSLs) while the
two exterior layers are composed of gridded-double square loops (G-DSLs)
structure. The proposed FSS can pro vide multitransmission zeros which
lead to a wide out-of-band rejection between each two adjacent passbands
and sharp rejection behavior on both sides of each passband. Furthermore,
the FSS exhibits stable response over a wide range of incident angles for
both TE and TM polarizations. The design procedure, simulation, and
experiment of the FSS are presented. The measured results are in good
agreement with the simulations.
Index Terms—Bandpass filter, frequency-selective surface (FSS), high
selectivity, tri-band.
I. INTRODUCTION
Frequency-selective surfaces (FSSs) have been studied extensively
for their wide applications [1], such as antenna reflectors, spatial fil-
ters, radomes, and electromagnetic band gap materials [2]–[4]. With
the rapid development of satellite communications, the operating band
covers microwave and millimeter-wave bands or optical band. To
increase the capability of multifrequency antennas in satellite commu-
nication system, multiband FSS with independent transmission band
are required [5]. In recent years, many of the techniques have been pro-
posed to design multiband FSSs. Fractal structure has self-similarity
feature that results in a multiband property [3], [6]. Composite ele-
ments, composed of concentric rings with different sizes, were adopted
to design multiband FSSs in [5], [7], and [8]. Complementary struc-
ture, patterned on different layers, were used to design dual- or
tri-band FSSs [9], [10], which provide multi transmission poles and
zeros. Nevertheless, for the above-mentioned designs, it is difficult to
obtain high selectivity within the operating band and wide out-of-band
rejection performance, which is desirable in some applications.
To realize highly selective FSS with sharp rejection behavior on
both sides of the passband, group of multilayer FSSs have been
studied. Many techniques using nonresonant subwavelength periodic
structure for designing FSSs have been proposed [11]–[14]. Such
FSSs have the advantages of low-profile, multiorder, dual-band per-
formance. In [15], a three-layer FSS is designed based on the coupling
between two exterior layers of patch arrays through the middle slot
array. The substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) technique was pro-
posed in [16]. This FSS exhibits good filtering performance despite
Manuscript receive d April 23, 2015; revised January 27, 2016; accepted
February 11, 2016. Date of publication February 29, 2016; date of current
version May 03, 2016. This work was supported in part by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61331005, Grant 61471388,
Grant 61501502, Grant 61501497, and Grant 11274389, in part by the Natural
Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province under Grant 2015JM6277 and Grant
2015JM6300, in part by the National Science Foundation for Postdoctoral
Scientists of China under Grant 2014M552451, and in part by the Innovative
Team Foundation of Shaanxi Province under Grant 2014KCT-05.
The authors are with the College of Science, Air Force Engineering
Uni versity, Xi’an 710051, China (e-mail: qushaobo@mail.xjtu.edu.cn;
fmingde@vip.163.com; mbyan2005@126.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this communication are
available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2016.2536175
narrow bandwidth and high insertion loss. A new type of three-
dimensional (3-D) FSS was investigated in [17]. The 3-D element FSS
can produce a quasi-elliptic bandpass response. Although 3-D FSSs
exhibit good performance, it is difficult to be fabricated, compared
with conventional combinations of two-dimensional (2-D) surfaces
[18], in which the double screen FSS composed of gridded square
loop (GSL) arrays and double square loop (DSL) arrays is synthe-
sized. A single-layer FSS composed of DSL arrays and its equivalent
circuit model (ECM) was deduced in [19]. The GSL arrays and its
ECM at oblique angles of incidence were discussed in [20]. A single-
screen DSL element FSS is designed with four-band response which
passes the S- and Ku-band signals while reflecting the X- and Ka-band
signals. Using ECM, two types of FSS with GSL and DSL elements
were, respectively, designed for suppressing the harmonics radiation in
microwave power transmission system [21]. Obviously, the selectivity
of these FSSs is somewhat low.
In this communication, we present a tri-band FSS with highly selec-
tive performance over a wide range of incident angles. The proposed
FSS is composed of three metallic layers separated by two thin dielec-
tric substrates. The two exterior layers are composed of gridded-double
square loops (G-DSLs) arrays and the middle layer is formed by DSLs
array. The overall thickness of the design is about 0.05λ and the unit
cell dimension is 0.125λ,whereλ is the free-space wavelength of
the lowest resonant frequency. Thus, the FSS also has the lo w-profile
and miniaturization response. Furthermore, the frequency response of
the FSS is stable for two polarizations (TE and TM) due to its sym-
metrical structure. In what follows, the design procedure, operating
principle, structure description, and the simulated and measured results
are presented and further discussed.
II. D
ESIGN PROCEDURE AND STRUCTURE DESCRIPTION
A. Design Procedure
Fig. 1(a) depicts the topology of the tri-band microwav e filter that
presents the basis of operation of the proposed tri-band FSS. The
microwave filter is composed of two same hybrid resonators sepa-
rated from two shunt serial LC resonators, by two short transmission
lines. Each hybrid resonator contains two shunt serial LC resonators
(L
1
− C
1
and L
2
− C
2
) in shunt with an inductor (L
0
). Each short
transmission line has a characteristic impedance Z and an overall thick-
ness d. Assuming that the first and the second passbands are apart,
the effect of set of serial LC resonators (L
1
− C
1
and L
2
− C
2
) can
be ignored. Each short transmission line (d λ) can be replaced
with an inductor L
t
. The simplified ECM is sho wn in Fig. 1(b). It is
obvious that when the serial LC resonator (L
3
− C
3
) and two induc-
tors (L
0
) resonate, one transmission pole and one transmission zero
can be obtained at their resonant frequencies f
p1
and f
z1
(f
p1
>f
z1
).
Thus, one passband and stop-band are formed around these two reso-
nant frequencies. The two resonant frequencies of f
p1
and f
z1
can be
expressed as
f
p1
=1/2π
(L
0
+ L
3
+ L
t
)(C
3
+ C
t
) (1)
f
z1
=1/2π
√
L
3
C
3
. (2)
Assuming that two same serial LC resonators (L
1
− C
1
)are
shunted into the topology of Fig. 1(b), another transmission zero can
be produced at the resonant frequency f
z2
(f
z2
<f
z1
). The second
stop-band is then formed around the frequency of f
z2
, which can be
expressed as
f
z2
=1/2π
√
L
1
C
1
. (3)
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