Construction of Green's functions of parallel plates with periodic texture with application to gap waveguides - A plane wave spectral domain approach

This study presents Green's functions of parallel-plate structures, where one plate has a smooth conducting surface and the other an artificial surface realised by a one-dimensional or two-dimensional periodic metamaterial-type texture. The purpose of the periodic texture is to provide cut-off of the lowest order parallel-plate modes, thereby forcing electromagnetic energy to follow conducting ridges or strips, that is, to form a gap waveguide as recently introduced. The Green's functions are constructed by using the appropriate homogenised ideal or asymptotic boundary conditions in the plane-wave spectral domain, thereby avoiding the complexity of the Floquet-mode expansions. In the special case of a single ridge or strip, an additional numerical search for propagation constants is needed and performed in order to satisfy the boundary condition on the considered ridge or strip in the spatial domain. The results reveal the dispersion characteristics of the quasi-transverse electromagnetic modes that propagate along the ridges or strips, including their lower and upper cut-off frequencies, as well as the theoretical decay of the modal field in the transverse cut-off direction. This lateral decay shows values of 50-100 dB per wavelength for realisable geometries, indicating that the gap waveguide modes are extremely confined. The analytical formulas for the location of the stopband of the lowest order parallel-plate modes obtained by small-argument approximation of the dispersion equation are also shown. To verify the proposed analysis approach, the results are compared with the results obtained with a general electromagnetic solver showing very good agreement

Analytical modeling and experimental verification of coupling between transmission lines in gap-waveguides

Modeling of gap-waveguide structures with single and multiple transmission lines is performed using spectral domain Green's functions approach. The approach is extended using even/odd mode analysis in order to also estimate the crosstalk levels between neighboring transmission lines. The results of this analysis are compared with the results of a commercial electromagnetic solver and with the measured results

Gap Waveguide PMC Packaging for Improved Isolation of Circuit Components in High-Frequency Microwave Modules

In this paper, perfect magnetic conductor (PMC)-based packaging technique was used to improve the isolation performance among various microwave circuit components such as high-gain amplifier chains. In this approach, a periodic structure (such as metal pin rows) together with the ground plane of the substrate created a stopband for unwanted parallel plate or cavity modes as well as substrate modes, and thereby suppressed the problems of circuit resonances and related package phenomena. This paper describes two Ka-band amplifier chains that were tested with this new packaging technique. Firstly, a single amplifier chain was tested for maximum stable gain operation, and it was found that the stable gain of >65 dB was achieved, whereas traditional metal wall package with RF absorber offered stable gain of 40 dB, thus showing significant isolation improvement. Secondly, two high-gain amplifier chains were placed side by side and their mutual isolation was tested. With the proposed gap waveguide packaging, a minimum isolation of 78 dB was achieved, whereas a complete metal shield provided a minimum isolation of only 64 dB over the band of interest

Electromagnetic wormholes via handlebody constructions

Cloaking devices are prescriptions of electrostatic, optical or electromagnetic parameter fields (conductivity $\sigma(x)$, index of refraction $n(x)$, or electric permittivity $\epsilon(x)$ and magnetic permeability $\mu(x)$) which are piecewise smooth on $\mathbb R^3$ and singular on a hypersurface $\Sigma$, and such that objects in the region enclosed by $\Sigma$ are not detectable to external observation by waves. Here, we give related constructions of invisible tunnels, which allow electromagnetic waves to pass between possibly distant points, but with only the ends of the tunnels visible to electromagnetic imaging. Effectively, these change the topology of space with respect to solutions of Maxwell's equations, corresponding to attaching a handlebody to $\mathbb R^3$. The resulting devices thus function as electromagnetic wormholes.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures (some color

A study of uncertainty models in a reverberation chamber at NIST

The reverberation chamber has become a good alternative for over-the-air (OTA) testing of small antennas. Here the uncertainty of total radiated power measurements is evaluated for a reverberation chamber at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder, Colorado. A procedure for measuring the uncertainty based on the standard deviation of nine different antenna orientations in the RC has been used

Comparisons of Blockage Widths of Ideally Hard Cylinders of Different Cross-Sectional Shapes

In some applications the electromagnetic waves radiating from or being received by an antenna are obstructed by some mechanical structure. If the structure is part of or close to an antenna, the obstruction may represent aperture blockage causing increased sidelobes and reduced gain of the antenna. For example, the blocking structures can be struts or masts supporting the feed in reflectarrays or in reflectors. Usually in antennas, the direction of the incident wave is known, so the struts can be designed to reduce the blockage for a given direction of incidence

Diversity Characterization of Optimized Two-Antenna Systems for UMTS Handsets

This paper presents the evaluation of the diversity performance of several two-antenna systems for UMTS terminals. All the measurements are done in a reverberation chamber and in a Wheeler cap setup. First, a two-antenna system having poor isolation between its radiators is measured. Then, the performance of this structure is compared with two optimized structures having high isolation and high total efficiency, thanks to the implementation of a neutralization technique between the radiating elements. The key diversity parameters of all these systems are discussed, that is, the total efficiency of the antenna, the envelope correlation coefficient, the diversity gains, the mean effective gain (MEG), and the MEG ratio. The comparison of all these results is especially showing the benefit brought back by the neutralization technique

Design of cryogenic 2-14 GHz eleven feed for reflector antennas for future radio telescopes

No Abstract

Preoperative CT angiography reduces surgery time in perforator flap reconstruction

The use of perforator flaps in breast reconstructions has increased considerably in the past decade. A disadvantage of the perforator flap is difficult dissection, which results in a longer procedure. During spring 2006, we introduced CT angiography (CTA) as part of the diagnostic work-up in perforator flap reconstructions to visualise each perforator more accuratety. The main objectives were to reduce surgery time and the number of complications. A chart review was conducted 1 year after CTA introduction to investigate if these objectives were met. Materials and methods: Patients with a deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap who underwent preoperative analysis through CTA were retrospectively evaluated. The population Results: One hundred and thirty-eight DIEP breast reconstructions were done; 70 underwent preoperative CTA analysis, and 68 had preoperative Doppler investigation. Surgery time in the CTA group was significantly lower (P <0.001) than in the control group, 264 min (SD +/- 62) versus 354 min (SD +/- 83), respectively. There was a tendency for fewer complications in the CTA group compared with the control group. All flaps were successful in the CTA group. In the control group, one flap failed and partial necrosis occurred in three flaps. The differences were not statistically significant. Conclusions: Preoperative CTA in the assessment of vascular anatomy during perforator flap reconstruction was safe and reliable. It helped reduce surgery time, and may prevent the number of postoperative complications. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons

Simple Boundary Condition for Canonical EBG Surface: PMC-Backed Uniaxial Medium

A simple-to-use replacement model for isotropic electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) surfaces such as mushroom surfaces is investigated. Properties of EBG surfaces strongly depend on the incidence angle of the incoming plane wave. The suggested model takes this behavior into account and actually represents the ideal EBG surface. The model is based on uniaxial representation of a thin DB layer backed by a perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) plate. We investigate how this model behaves in comparison with a realistic mushroom surface, and when it can be applied. The results show that the proposed model can be used for both far field calculations and antenna coupling evaluation