Metamaterials: New aspects in antenna design

The recent developments of the telecommunication system stipulate miniaturization and integrating multiple functions is of extreme importance. Particularly devices which are generally used in day to day life like smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, wireless internet devices, mobile communication system, etc. To fulfill this constraint, the handheld devices component should be of more compact, equipped with multiple functions, and operates for a different band of frequencies. Antenna having distinctive features like compact size, conformal to planar and non-planar structures, proficient in operating one or more band of frequencies, etc., is a key element in enhancing the performance of wireless communication systems. Currently, there are numerous techniques to address these issues such as high permittivity dielectric substrate, fractal geometry, altering ground plane, and so on. But these techniques have low gain, narrow bandwidth demerits. A novel technique that is of superior attention to antenna researchers is designing antenna by incorporating electromagnetic metamaterial. It consents to change electromagnetic wave propagation resulting in a negative refraction index (NRI). The metamaterials with NRI property performs as filters, radiating element, decoupling network, etc. Hence metamaterial stimulated antennas reduces size as well as enhances antenna parameters. So, in this paper, an effort is made to highlight the implications of metamaterials on antenna design to improve performance and achieve multiband, reconfigurable, miniaturization, isolation enhancement characteristics.