Physical limitations on antennas of arbitrary shape

Abstract

In this paper, physical limitations on bandwidth, realized gain, Q-factor and directivity are derived for antennas of arbitrary shape. The product of bandwidth and realizable gain is shown to be bounded from above by the eigenvalues of the long-wavelength, high-contrast polarizability dyadics. These dyadics are proportional to the antenna volume and are easily determined for an arbitrary geometry. Ellipsoidal antenna volumes are analysed in detail, and numerical results for some generic geometries are presented. The theory is verified against the classical Chu limitations for spherical geometries and shown to yield sharper bounds for the ratio of the directivity and the Q-factor for non-spherical geometries. © 2007 The Royal Society.