Monolithic MEMS-based reflectarray cell digitally reconfigurable over a 360° phase range

In this letter, we present a reconfigurable reflectarray cell operating at 12 GHz and fabricated in a monolithic MEMS process. A 5-bit digital control allows reconfiguration of the reflection phase over the full 360deg range, while alleviating the impact of MEMS and bias voltage tolerances on the device performances. The designed reflectarray cell exhibits low frequency phase error (large bandwidth) and excellent measured reflection loss (-0.3 dB) with regard to state-of-the-art. Close agreement between measurements and full-wave simulations is observed.