Transmission efficiency limit of single-switch and cascaded reconfigurable transmitarray elements

Abstract: Reconfigurable transmitarray antennas (RTAs) are rapidly gaining popularity, but optimizing their performance requires systematic design theories. In particular, establishing a performance limit theory for RTA elements is valuable. This paper presents a transmission efficiency limit theory for single-switch RTA elements and their cascaded extensions. Employing microwave network analysis, we analytically investigate single-switch RTA elements, demonstrating that their transmission coefficients under two states must lie on or within a specific unit circle on the Smith chart. Therefore, the transmission phase difference is tightly constrained by the transmission amplitudes, indicating that the phase-shifting ability of a single-switch RTA element is limited. Subsequently, this analysis is extended to cascaded RTA elements. By cascading several single-switch layers, the phase variation range is extended, enabling the realization of 1-bit phase shifts with high transmission amplitudes. These findings have significant impact on the design and optimization of RTA elements.