1-bit Low-Cost Electronically Reconfigurable Reflectarray and Phased Array Based on p-i-n Diodes for Dynamic Beam Scanning

This work proposes an element with 1-bit phase resolution that operates in both reflection and radiation modes. The 1-bit phase responses in two operating modes can be realized by switching the states of three integrated PIN diodes. The array composed of the elements can be excited as both a reflectarray (RA) by the external feed in space and a phased array (PA) without phase shifters by the integrated feeding network at its bottom. Drawing inspiration from the RA, the feeding network introduces initial phase distributions irradiated by a hypothetical spatial feed above the PA to mitigate the grating lobes of the 1-bit PA. An electronically reconfigurable array antenna prototype composed of 8 × 16 elements was manufactured and measured to verify its performance. The experimental results indicate that the designed array antenna can realize dynamic beam scanning in the range of ±45° in E-plane and ±30° in H-plane within less than 3 dB gain loss, verifying its feasibility for both RA and PA applications.