Radiation from one-dimensional dielectric leaky-wave antennas

Abstract

Dielectric leaky-wave antennas consist of multiple dielectric layers above a ground plane, along with a simple source such as an infinite line current in the one-dimensional case. The layers act as a guiding structure for one or more leaky waves, which are responsible for producing a narrow-beam radiation pattern. Depending on the beam angle, the leaky waves may extend for a considerable distance from the source, and thus experience truncation effects due to a finite-size substrate. One of the purposes of the present investigation is to study efficient methods for calculating the patterns under such conditions. The chirp z-transform (CZT) is shown to be very efficient for this. Simple approximate formulas for calculating the radiation pattern are also investigated. In addition, a study is also made of the different contributions to the total aperture field, including the leaky-wave field, the space-wave field, and the surface-wave field.