Development of a metasurface-based slot antenna for 5G MIMO applications with minimized cross-polarization and stable radiation patterns through mode manipulation

This paper presents an approach for designing metasurface antennas using the characteristic mode analysis method for 5G mm-wave multiple input–multiple output (MIMO) systems. The proposed metasurface antenna consists of a 3 × 3 array of modified patches with additional slits and stubs, which are fed by a coupling slot. This configuration reshapes surface currents and improves the radiation performance across a broad frequency range. The design offers significant advantages such as reduced antenna size, minimized influence of higher-order modes, and maintained low cross-polarization (XP) level. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed metasurface-based slot antenna provides a bandwidth of 29.6% (23–31 GHz) with a return loss better than 10 dB. It achieves a peak gain of 9.43 dB and exhibits an XP level below − 26 dB and − 48 dB at \(\varphi = 0^{ \circ }\) $\phi =0^{\circ }$ and \(\varphi = 90^{ \circ }\) $\phi ={90}^{\circ }$ planes, respectively. The physical dimensions of the antenna are 0.9λ₀ × 0.9λ₀ × 0.08λ₀, where λ₀ is the free space wavelength at 27 GHz, resulting in an approximately 41% reduction compared to the conventional metasurface patch antenna. Moreover, the design proves to be well-suited for MIMO systems, enabling close placement of antenna elements without degrading their radiation patterns. The experimental results in 1 × 2 and 2 × 2 MIMO configurations represent that the isolation between antenna elements are better than 18 dB and 21 dB, respectively. The performance of the antennas remains stable in both configurations, effectively addressing concerns such as beam squint and eliminating the common issue of beam splitting observed in conventional metasurface MIMO antennas. Moreover, the envelope correlation coefficient value in both MIMO configurations is lower than 0.003. This significant advancement offers a promising solution for compact 5G mm-wave massive MIMO applications.