PREDICTIONS OF THE EFFICIENCIES OF SUPERCONDUCTING SMALL ANTENNAS CONNECTED TO LOSSY GROUND PLANES USING A SOMMERFELD INTEGRAL TECHNIQUE

Electrically small loops and monopoles are modeled over infinite lossy ground planes using a modification to the Sommerfeld approach, in ord er to assess the performance of YBCO antennas connected to typical met allic ground planes. Calculated results suggest that for antennas with low radiation resistances, significant efficiency improvements can be obtained with YBCO elements even if the ground planes remain lossy, a nd that little is to be gained by making the ground planes superconduc ting if the antenna elements remain lossy.