Design and Analysis of a Nano Horn Antenna for Harnessing Solar Energy

Abstract

Presented in this paper is a concept and design of a Nano horn antenna for harnessing of NIR, with a good return loss and directivity over the range of 200 to 300 THz. A combination of horn and nano antenna were considered for the design of NIR capturing system. Some of the key issues that need to be considered to ensure effective performance of the designed antenna include a) Plasmonics influenced attenuation due to RF wave penetration, b) effective impedance matching while modelling, and c) the tapering of the horn antenna for ensuring, directivity and reflection coefficient. In the work carried out, to address the issues of Plasmonics a combination of Silver (Ag) and Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) was considered for the antenna, the antenna flaring angle and aperture dimensions were varied for the considered range of 200 to 300 THz. The index of nature of curvature is varied for modelling of the taper of the horn. The optimal results observed after multiple iterations are: Directivity: 14.22dBi, Beam Width: 28.80, Radiation efficiency: 66.93%, Side lobe level: -10 dB, S11 is below -15 dB for entire range, Power radiated is 3.87 dBW/m2. It is observed that as aperture and flaring angle decrease, directivity decreases. Thus for the designed horn nano antenna in the frequency range from 200 to 300 THz, the directivity was around 14.22dBi and the Radiation efficiency was 66.93%.