2022
16, 2017
Design and Analysis of Ultrathin Polarization
Rotating Frequency Selective Surface Using
V-Shaped Slots
Mondeep Saikia, Student Member, IEEE, Saptarshi Ghosh, Student Member, IEEE,
and Kumar Vaibhav Srivastava, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—A novel polarization rotator design is demonstrated
theoretically as well as experimentally based on frequency-selective
surface (FSS). The polarization rotator selectively allows the lin-
early polarized incident wave to pass through the structure and
rotates it by 90◦ in a given frequency band. The periodic element
of the FSS design consists of orthogonally oriented V-shaped slots
on two metal sheets with the dielectric substrate separating the
sheets. The proposed structure exhibits a relative bandwidth of
8% (9.76–10.57 GHz) with a maximum insertion loss of 0.5 dB.
Copolarized reflection coefficient is less than −10 dB in the same
frequency band. The novelties of the structure lie in its reduced
thickness (0.053λo ) as well as compact design (0.28λo ) as com-
pared to the existing polarization rotators. A prototype has also
been fabricated, and good agreement between the simulated and
experimental results is observed.
Index Terms—Frequency selective surface (FSS), polarization
rotation, slot polarizer.
I. INTRODUCTION
REQUENCY selective surfaces (FSSs) have garnered con-
F siderable attention from researchers in the recent decades
because of their numerous applications. An FSS is a 2-D peri-
odic array consisting of metallic patches printed or slots etched
on a metallic sheet, usually supported by a dielectric substrate.
By carefully designing the periodic element, the response as
well as the application of the FSS can be engineered. Spatial
filters [1], [2], radomes [3], absorbers [4], etc., are some of the
examples of FSS applications. FSS can also be designed to ma-
nipulate the polarization of electromagnetic (EM) waves into
desired directions.
Polarization rotators can be broadly classified into two types
according to the direction of the outgoing wave: reflection type
[5], [6] and transmission type [7]–[9]. Polarization rotating re-
flective surfaces are commonly used in reflectarray antennas [5].
Similarly, transmission-type polarization rotators can be used in
transmitarray antennas and filtennas, which combine an antenna
with a filtering shield [8]. In applications requiring separation of
Manuscript received February 18, 2017; accepted April 9, 2017. Date of pub-
lication April 12, 2017; date of current version July 24, 2017. (Corresponding
author: Mondeep Saikia.)
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Insti-
tute of Technology, Kanpur 208016, India (e-mail: mondeepsaikia@gmail.com;
joysaptarshi@gmail.com; kvs@iitk.ac.in).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2017.2693685
1536-1225 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL.
polarization such as polarimetric imaging radars or radiometers,
transmission-type polarization rotators can be used.
Many designs have been proposed for transmission-type po-
larization rotators. Substrate integrated waveguide (SIW)-based
designs have been reported to achieve polarization rotation in
wideband frequency range with subwavelength thickness [8]–
[11]. Multilayered designs have also been reported to show the
broadband feature [7]. However, the thickness of these struc-
tures is too large for practical applications. Besides, the designs
need to be further miniaturized for practical applications.
In this letter, a novel transmission-type polarization rotator
design is proposed. The design also exhibits the polarization
selectivity property. The polarization rotator selects a linear po-
larization of incident wave, which is rotated by 90◦ and trans-
mitted. The novelties of the design lie in its ultrathin thickness
and miniaturization performance as compared to earlier reported
polarization rotators. Furthermore, a prototype is fabricated and
experimentally verified to validate the proposed approach.
II. DESIGN OF A POLARIZATION ROTATOR
The primary function of the polarization rotator design pro-
posed in this work is selection of a linearly polarized incident
wave and its subsequent rotation by 90◦ in a given frequency
band. When EM wave is incident on the top surface of a polariza-
tion rotator, it converts Y-polarized wave into X-polarized wave.
To characterize the performance of the polarization rotator, we
define cross-polarized transmission coefficient as txy = |E tx |
|E i y | .
Here, Etx is the transmitted X-polarized electric field when Eiy
is the incident Y-polarized electric field. Similarly, copolarized
|E |
reflection coefficient can be defined as ry y = |Eri yy | .
A. Design Methodology
In order to select a particular polarization from the incident
radiation, slots of different geometries are widely used. The
incident energy can be coupled with the slots, and it can either
be transmitted or reflected based on the presence of the ground
plane. The resonant frequency at which the energy couples with
the slot depends on the total slot length, which is approximately
half of the wavelength [8]. Thus, the resonant frequency can be
approximately derived as
co
fR ,S = √ (1)
2l eff
SAIKIA et al.: DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF ULTRATHIN POLARIZATION ROTATING FSS
Fig. 1. Unit cell and response of FSS I. (a) Top surface, (b) bottom surface,
and (c) simulated response.
Fig. 2. Unit cell and response of FSS II. (a) Top surface, (b) bottom surface,
and (c) simulated response.
Fig. 3. Unit cell and response of FSS III. (a) Top surface, (b) bottom surface,
and (c) simulated response.
where l is the slot length, co is the speed of light in vacuum, and
eff is the effective permittivity of the dielectric.
We have initially considered a V-shaped-slot-based FSS de-
sign. The unit cell has metal sheets imprinted on both sides of
a dielectric substrate, where the slots are etched on both the
sides of the substrate. Rogers RT duroid 5880 has been used as
dielectric with relative permittivity of 2.2 and loss tangent of
0.0009. Copper has been used as metal with a conductivity of
5.8 × 107 S/m and a thickness of 0.035 mm.
By using different orientations of the slots relative to each
other we can get three different kinds of FSSs as shown in
Figs. 1–3. In first and third FSSs, the transmitted EM wave
2023
Fig. 4. (a) Perspective view and (b) top view of the unit cell geometry of the
proposed polarization rotator. (c) Top view of top layer and (d) the top view of
the bottom layer of the structure.
maintains the same polarization as incident wave. Hence, the
first design is an example of a single-band spatial filter, and
similarly, the third is an example of a dual-band spatial filter.
However, in the second FSS, the polarization of the transmitted
EM wave is rotated by 90◦ , thereby exhibiting polarization ro-
tation. In each of the designs, top and bottom layers are coupled
to each other by coupling aperture and exhibit two transmis-
sion bands [12]. Specifically, one of the bands is caused by
the individual resonator, whereas the other one results from the
combined effect of the coupling apertures.
The copolarized reflection coefficient of FSS II is more than
−10 dB over the frequency range 9.65–11.15 GHz with max-
imum insertion loss 0.62 dB. At center frequency, the size of
unit cell is 0.35λo . The unit cell size can be reduced further by
bending the slot ends inwards, as shown in Fig. 4.
B. Proposed Polarization Rotator
As observed from Fig. 2, the slot-based FSS structure can
exhibit polarization rotation property over a wide frequency
range. In the proposed design, the unit cell size has been further
reduced by bending the slot ends inwards, as shown in Fig. 4.
This will decrease the resonance frequency while improving the
miniaturization performance. The optimized dimensions of the
proposed structures are as follows: W = 8.2 mm, L1 = 5.4 mm,
L2 = 3.2 mm, WS 1 = 0.8 mm, WS 2 = 1 mm, and dielectric
thickness d = 1.57 mm.
When the Y-polarized wave is incident on the designed struc-
ture, copolarized reflection (ry y ) is better than −10 dB over the
frequency range 9.76–10.56 GHz (relative bandwidth of 8%)
with a maximum insertion loss of 0.5 dB in the passband as
shown in Fig. 5. The simulation also shows two transmission
bands, viz. 9.89 and 10.40 GHz, where the copolarized reflec-
tions are maximum.
2024
Fig. 5. Simulated response of the proposed polarization rotator.
Fig. 6. Substrate electric field distribution just below the top metal surface
at (a) 9.89 and (b) 10.4 GHz, and just above the bottom metal surface at
(c) 9.89 and (d) 10.4 GHz.
III. PHYSICAL ANALYSIS OF POLARIZATION ROTATION
By observing the response of the FSSs in Figs. 1–3, it can
be concluded that the polarization of the transmitted EM wave
depends on the relative orientation of the V-shaped slots with
respect to each other. To understand the polarization rotation
mechanism, the E-fields at the top and bottom surfaces of the
dielectric sheet are plotted for Y-polarized incident EM wave.
Fig. 6(a) and (b) shows the E-field in the dielectric just below
the top metal sheet, whereas Fig. 6(c) and (d) shows the E-field
in the vicinity of bottom surface. It is observed that the E-field
is either inwards (bottom surface) or outwards (top surface) to
the slot. Then, the magnetic current distribution can be obtained
from the E-field using the equivalence principle [13]
−→ − →
Ms = E × n̂
where n̂ is the unit vector that points outwards of the dielectric
volume. For the top surface, it is along the ẑ-direction, whereas
for the bottom surface, it is along the −ẑ-direction.
The induced magnetic surface current at top and bottom sur-
faces of the dielectric is shown in Fig. 7. Since the E-field on

the smaller arms is much less, the effects of Ms1 (Ms1 ) and

Ms4 (Ms4 ) can be ignored. Now, the V-shaped slot on the top
IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 16, 2017
Fig. 7. Magnetic surface current distribution on (a) top and (b) bottom slots.
Fig. 8. Simulated scattering parameters of the proposed polarization rotator
for different incident angles under (a) TE and (b) TM polarizations.
surface is used for selecting the Y-polarization (resultant direc-
tion of Ms2 and Ms3 ) from the incident radiation. The wave
propagates through the dielectric substrate and further interacts
with the orthogonal slot at the back side of the structure. Then,
the outgoing wave becomes X-polarized (resultant direction of
Ms2 and Ms3 ). Thus, the incident wave is selectively polarized
by 90◦ while passing through the proposed structure. As the
total length of the slot is approximately λ/2, the direction of
magnetic current has to be continuous throughout the length of
 
the slot. Thus, the E-field associated with Ms2 and Ms2 adds to
give a resultant polarization along the X-direction.
The proposed polarization rotator has also been studied for
different incident angles under both TE and TM polarizations,
as observed from Fig. 8. It is observed that the structure exhibits
higher insertion loss with larger incident angles for both the
polarizations. Therefore, the design can be claimed as angularly
stable up to 20◦ angle of incidence, where impedance matching
better than −10 dB has been realized.
When the top slot is shifted slightly with respect to the bottom
slot or vice versa, there is a minor change in the transmission
response. While shifting in one particular direction, the trans-
mission bands come closer to each other, thus resulting in lower
insertion loss and reduced impedance bandwidth. The response
becomes opposite during the opposite shift.
(2)
IV. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
In order to verify the proposed design, a prototype consisting
of 17 × 17 periodic array elements is fabricated, as shown in
Fig. 9. The size of the sample is 140 × 140 mm2 .
The measurement has been carried out in an anechoic cham-
ber using two standard gain horn antennas connected to a vector
network analyzer, as illustrated in Fig. 10. In the case of copolar
SAIKIA et al.: DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF ULTRATHIN POLARIZATION ROTATING FSS 2025

TABLE I
COMPARISON TO THE EXISTING DESIGNS

Substrate Dielectric Relative Insertion

Periodicity
thickness constant bandwidth loss (dB)

[8] 0.66λ0 0.18λ0 2.2 7.2% 0.2

[9] 0.66λ0 0.18λ0 2.2 9.1% 1.5
[10] 0.72λ0 0.17λ0 2.2 5.6% 3
[11] 0.78λ0 0.12λ0 4.4 2.55% –
Proposed
0.28λ0 0.053λ0 2.2 8% 0.5
design

Fig. 9. Fabricated sample of the proposed polarization rotator. (a) Top surface small deviation in the higher frequency range can be attributed
and (b) bottom surface. to the dielectric constant drifting and fabrication tolerance.

V. CONCLUSION
In this letter, a novel polarization rotator based on slot reso-
nance is presented. The design is verified by numerical simu-
lation as well as experimental measurement. The performance
of the proposed structure is also compared to some earlier re-
ported polarization rotator designs in Table I, which shows the
advantages of the design for use in practical applications.

Fig. 10. Photographs of the measurement setup for the proposed polarization
rotator. (a) Reflection measurement with two antennas adjacently placed in
identical orientation. (b) Transmission measurement with two antennas placed
face to face in orthogonal orientation.
Fig. 11. Simulated and measured transmission and reflection coefficient of
the proposed polarization rotator.
reflection measurement, two antennas are placed adjacently in
identical orientation, while the sample is kept at far-field dis-
tance from the antennas. During cross-polar transmission mea-
surement, the antennas are placed in the opposite sides of the
sample facing each other in orthogonal polarization. In both the
cases, reference measurements have been recorded to normalize
the imperfections during measurement.
The measured results of the prototype are depicted in Fig. 11,
which show good agreement with the simulated responses. The
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