Composite right/left-handed transmission line based on Koch fractal shape slot in the ground and UWB filter application

A novel composite right/left-handed transmission line is presented which is synthesized by etching Koch fractal shape slot in the ground plane and series capacitive gap in the conductor strip. Unlike the structures loaded with complementary split ring resonators, the proposed structure can operate at very wideband and is used to design an ultra-wideband (UWB) filter. The UWB filter is fabricated and tested. The relative bandwidth of the - 10 dB return loss is 128% and the insertion loss is larger than - 1.5 dB except at high frequencies. The equivalent circuit model of the proposed structure is presented and the electrical parameters are also extracted. The circuit model results are compared with the simulation and measurement results which verify that not only the extracted parameters are exact but also the equivalent circuit model is reasonable. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 2160-2163, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24553