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What is the practical maximum commercial substrate thickness used for microstrip antennas?

While designing a microstrip antenna, I notice that increasing substrate thickness can improve bandwidth and efficiency.
However, commercial laminates come with manufacturing and performance constraints.
I want to know what thickness range is realistically available and commonly used in practice rather than in theory.

All Answers (1 Answers In All)

By Manoj Answered 1 year ago

From my experience, most commercial microwave substrates used for microstrip antennas rarely exceed about 3.2 to 6.35 mm in thickness. I have seen thicker laminates available on paper, but beyond this range fabrication becomes difficult and performance degrades due to surface waves and spurious radiation. I would recommend treating thickness above roughly 0.05λ as a warning zone rather than a design target. In practice, designers often stack substrates or introduce air gaps instead of relying on a single very thick dielectric, which gives better control and repeatability.

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