LAUSR

A circularly polarized (CP) patch antenna loaded with a metasurface, which is realized with a lattice of 4 × 4 square solar cells, is presented. The antenna is composed of a slotted circular patch sandwiched between the metasurface and the ground plane. This arrangement not only allows for total exposure of the solar cells to sunlight (100% insolation) but also improves antenna performance greatly. The final design, with an overall size of ${\text{40}}\,\text{mm}\times \text{40}\,\text{mm} \times \text{3.5}\,\text{mm}\,(\text{0.87}\lambda _{o} \times \text{0.87}\lambda _{o} \times \text{0.076}\lambda _{o}$ at 6.5 GHz) yields a VSWR <2 bandwidth of 6.05–7.33 GHz and 3 dB axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth of 6.0–7.05 GHz. The antenna yields good broadside, right-hand CP radiation with a peak gain of 9.0 dBic, and high radiation efficiency of >85% across its 3 dB AR bandwidth.