A spectral domain analysis aimed at studying dipoles radiating in layered media is presented. The model allows for the modeling of the non-zero metal thickness and the reactance associated with a Δ-gap excitation. The solution can be efficiently calculated with a semi-analytical procedure, and it is linked to an equivalent circuit representation. The results show an accuracy up to par with commercial solvers regarding the input impedance and the radiated far field patterns.

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The use of lens arrays in (sub)-millimeter sensing and communication applications will enable the development of integrated antenna front-ends with multiple independent beams as well as dynamic scanning capabilities. In applications such as MIMO communications, interferometric arrays, and Tx/Rx duplexing capabilities, a key parameter is the mutual coupling between the integrated antenna front-ends. In this work, we model such mutual coupling using a geometrical optics (GO) technique combined with bi-directional forward ray tracing. In this model, the mutual coupling is estimated by considering up to secondary reflections in lens array geometries. The proposed technique is then used to investigate the mutual coupling for low and high-density lens arrays as a function of feed locations. The accuracy of the model is also investigated in comparison to full wave simulations and measured data reaching a sufficient agreement to identify the regions within lens arrays with critical mutual coupling levels.@en

The calculation of the transmission line Green’s function (TL GF) of an infinite metal line of rectangular cross section embedded in a generalized stratification is presented. The proposed procedure is quasi-analytical and extends prior models to account effectively for the nonzero thickness of the conductors. From Green’s function of an infinite dipole, an equivalent network is derived to represent the current propagating along the dipole and the reactive loading due to the feeding gap dimensions. The method is validated with numerical simulations and available experimental results. Examples of dipoles in free space, microstrips, and leaky dipoles are shown.@en

Photo-conductive antennas (PCAs) are the workhorse of time-domain THz sensing and imaging. In this work, we employ a rigorous Norton equivalent circuit model to identify and estimate the substrate-related parasitic effects, that might limit the THz emission, to better design future PCAs.

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We present a dual-polarized connected array of slots with an artificial dielectric layer (ADL) radome for mobile communication applications operating in the sub-6 GHz and the upper 6 GHz bands of 5G. The radiating slots are combined with two interchangeable ADL radomes with different thicknesses, targeting the bands 6-8 and 2-8 GHz, respectively. This highlights the main property of the ADL radome, which realizes an impedance transformer whose bandwidth is proportional to the height of the structure. Moreover, the ADL anisotropy allows for wide scanning, up to 60° in the main planes for both radomes, without scan blindness. An $8\,\, \times \,\, 8$ prototype array has been manufactured and tested with the two ADL radomes. The measured results of the active voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) and the radiation patterns are reported to validate the design.

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A strictly causal numerical study of the pulsed operation of a weakly dispersive, leaky wave (LW) antenna is presented. The intricacies at the forefront of the electromagnetic (EM) field radiated from a gap-fed slot in a perfectly electrically conducting (PEC) sheet are evidenced for the first time. The radical effect of a free-space gap separating the PEC sheet from the dielectric half-space into which the slot radiates is demonstrated, thus providing time-domain (TD) arguments for the effectiveness of this essential element of leaky-lens antennas (LLAs). The response of the gapped structure to an excitation consisting of pulse trains is evaluated. The discussed results pave the way toward building a genuine TD counterpart of the LW radiation from gap-fed slots. Furthermore, they are conditional to understanding the transients occurring in between intervals when a steady-state, time-harmonic (TH) operation can be assumed, an extremely relevant ingredient to implementing highly complex modulations in carrier-based, wireless transfer.

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Photoconductive antennas (PCAs) are used for imaging and sensing applications because of their ability to radiate short pulses with large bandwidths in the THz regime. The characterization of PCAs has previously been done using a time-domain Norton equivalent circuit. Thanks to a recent contribution, the size of the excited photoconductive area of PCAs that results in an impedance match with the antenna can be determined analytically using only the available optical power and the material parameters of the photoconductor. Through the impedance matching, the radiated THz power is maximized. These insights are used for the dimensioning of a wide-band photoconductive connected array to be used in the low THz band, excited by a high power laser (∼1W).@en

Drude's description of the response of low-temperature gallium arsenide to optical pulse excitation is used to evaluate the components of a time-domain Norton equivalent circuit of a photoconductive antenna (PCA) source. The saturation of the terahertz (THz) radiated power occurring at large optical excitation levels was previously associated by the scientific community to radiation and charge screening of the bias. With the present circuit, we are able to model accurately the measured saturation as only due to the EM feedback from the antenna to the bias. The predicted THz radiated power is shown to match very accurately the measurements when the circuit is combined with an accurate description of the experimental conditions and the modeling of the THz quasi-optical (QO) channel.

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In this work, we investigate antenna architectures to implement dual-mode operation in phased array designs. Planar slot antenna elements are used in array configuration, in combination with artificial dielectrics layers (ADLs) located in the close proximity of the array, to achieve pattern shaping. The artificial dielectric superstrate supports the propagation of leaky waves that can be optimized to enhance the gain in a specific angular region or to enlarge the array field of view. By controlling the amplitude and phase of the antenna elements, the radiation patterns can be combined to realize either wide or narrow beams. This concept present advantages for both millimeter-wave (mm-wave) communication and radar applications. A design of a four-element array fabricated in standard printed circuit board (PCB) technology validates the feasibility of the dual-mode operation. The measured results also show good agreement with simulations.

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The pulsed electromagnetic (EM) field radiated by a gap-fed, long slot in a perfectly conducting thin sheet located in between dielectric and free-space subdomains is examined. A phenomenological interpretation of the so-called head wave (HW) constituent is proposed, this fostering the understanding of the complex EM behaviour at, and immediately behind, the HW wave-front. The EM field is also examined numerically for identifying features that may lead the way towards inferring a causal counterpart of the leaky-wave propagation.@en

State-of-the-art THz pulsed commercial systems operating over large bandwidth suffer from high dispersion or low radiation efficiency due to the poor coupling between the transmitter and receiver photoconductive antennas (PCAs). In this work, we present the fabrication and characterization of a leaky-lens PCA that has the potential to solve this problem. The presented PCA is based on a low-temperature grown gallium arsenide (LT-GaAs) membrane with a 1:15 bandwidth coverage (0.1-1.5 THz), where the frequency response is constant. In order to fabricate the PCA on an LT-GaAs membrane, a novel fabrication process is developed. This process is dramatically faster than previously used processes (∼1.5 h instead of ∼20 h). Furthermore, an experimental validation of the radiated power together with the comparison to a standard bow-tie-based PCA fabricated on the same LT-GaAs wafer is shown in this article. We show that the PCA source on the LT-GaAs membrane is more efficient due to the enhanced leaky wave radiation. The leaky-lens PCA stands out as a great candidate to improve the coupling efficiency in THz pulsed commercial systems, where the maximum laser power that can be used is limited by the dispersion in the optic fiber.

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Photoconductive antennas (PCAs) are promising candidates for sensing and imaging systems. We have investigated their properties under pulsed laser illumination both in transmission and reception. First, a transmitting PCA has been characterized including a power measurement. Then, a Quasi-Optical (QO) link between a transmitter and a receiver was modelled and analyzed. In this work, we characterize this link with measurement. We use bow-tie based PCAs as examples, and measure the radiated power of the transmitter and the detected current of the receiver. The measurement shows very good agreement with the simulation.@en

In the circuit theory, the Norton and Thevenin equivalent generators are tools that simplify the solutions of networks involving passive or active components. They have been extensively used in the frequency domain to describe time-harmonic sources. A time-stepped evolution is instead typically used to include transient sources. As a particular case of the latter, the Norton equivalent circuit is extended here to investigate pulsed photoconducting sources, where a dc bias voltage and a pulsed optical laser are combined to generate terahertz (THz) bursts. The proposed derivation relies on the application of the electromagnetic (EM) equivalence theorem. The main conclusion of this derivation is the understanding that, from the three different spectral regions (dc, THz, and optics), only the THz radiation is to be explicitly included in the equivalent circuit. The theory is validated by a campaign of measurements reported in a connected paper.

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The number of independent links that can be hosted by an antenna platform for Line-of-Sight (LoS) communications is limited by its physical size and the interference between the beams associated with different users. For large-size platforms, the interference can be reduced by compromising the aperture efficiency, and this trade-off is the metric to quantify the effective use of the platform. This metric fails for antenna platforms that are not electrically large, for which the aperture efficiency is no longer a useful parameter. Here we resort to the concept of the Observable Field, related to the maximum theoretical directivity, to estimate the potential number of independent links supported by moderate-size platforms. This allows the introduction of coupling coefficients between the beams associated with the observable portion of the incident field and the beams associated with the receiving antennas. These coefficients are bounded to unity for any platform dimension, unlike the aperture efficiency, and they are maximized when the antenna pattern is equal to the pattern predicted by the Observable Field. Accordingly, selecting beams dictated by the Observable Field constitutes a benchmark for the effective use of the volume. Any antenna design can be compared to this benchmark to assess its merits.

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Photoconductive antennas are devices that provide power up to THz frequencies at a relatively low cost. However, the power radiated by each antenna is typically quite low and arrays have been proposed to increase it. In this paper we present the design of a leaky enhanced array architecture that surpasses the state of the art as it operates efficiently for frequencies up to 1THz, without excessive complications in the manufacturing. This architecture is compared with a ‘standard’ array, showing a broader bandwidth and a higher emitted detected signal.@en

A Volumetric Method of Moments accelerated by means of iterative solvers combined with FFT matrix-vector products has been presented. The method allows analyzing small lens antennas with their integrated feeds efficiently since different structures and geometries can be studied with the same discretization, just by adding the material characteristics in post-processing.@en

In this work, we show that the near field of leaky-wave resonant antennas (LWAs) radiating into a dense medium can be locally represented as a spherical wave in a certain solid angle around broadside using an accurate definition of the phase center. The near field in this solid angle can be efficiently evaluated through the integration of the spectral Green’s function along the steepest descent path (SDP). Beyond this solid angle, defined as the shadow boundary angle, a residual contribution due to the leaky-wave pole must also be added to fully describe the near field. It is found that this shadow boundary angle can be used to define the phase center and geometry of a truncated lens that couples well to leaky-wave antennas, even in electrically small-to-medium sized lenses and low-contrast cases. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed study, we combine the SDP field calculation with a Fourier optics (FO) methodology to evaluate the aperture efficiency and radiation patterns of small-to-medium sized lenses in reception. A truncated silicon lens with a diameter of only four free-space wavelengths is presented with almost 80% aperture efficiency. Excellent agreement with full-wave simulations is achieved, which demonstrates the accuracy of the proposed design and analysis methodology.@en

We present a study on beam coupling in radiating structures that support multiple simultaneous beams. The formation of multiple beams is relevant in modern wireless communication applications when diverse data streams can be sent from a single transmitter to users located in different directions. General expressions are provided that relate the coupling between radiated beams to the associated current distributions on the radiating aperture. When expanding the currents in terms of basis functions, the beam coupling can be also written in terms of coupling contributions due to each pair of basis functions. The analysis is applied to antenna arrays with different levels of mutual coupling between the array elements. More specifically, arrays of resonant elements, characterized by very low mutual coupling, are compared with arrays of connected elements, which are strongly coupled. We show that, even for a very high level of mutual coupling between individual array elements, it is possible to obtain orthogonal beams if the total current distributions associated with the beams are uncoupled.

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Future applications in sensing and communications at (sub)-millimetre wavelengths will benefit from having large integrated coherent arrays. The use of lens arrays will enable the fabrication of integrated antenna front-ends with many potential independent beams as well as dynamic scanning capabilities. For applications such as MIMO communications, interferometric arrays and Tx/Rx duplexing capabilities, a key design parameter can be the mutual coupling between the integrated antenna front-ends. In this contribution we model such mutual coupling for lens antenna arrays using Geometrical Optics technique combined with a bidirectional forward ray-tracing. The validation of the methodology against full wave simulations is also presented here.@en

We present an efficient method for the analysis of finite connected slot arrays in the presence of stratified media. The formulation is based on a spectral method of moments, where only one basis function is considered for each array element and one for each slot edge. An expression for the mutual impedance is derived in terms of a double spectral integral. Asymptotic extraction techniques are employed to largely reduce the computation time of one of the spectral integrals. For the other integral, when a guided wave contribution dominates the mutual coupling between two array elements, the result can be approximated as the residue of the spectral polar singularity, providing a closed-form solution of the coupling for elements at electrically large distances. The complete method enables simulations of entire finite arrays with hundreds or even thousands of elements in minutes. The same structure would require impractical computation time when analyzed with general-purpose commercial software. The method allows estimating the performance of finite connected arrays. This is particularly relevant because wideband connected arrays are known to exhibit higher edge effects compared to narrowband arrays, due to the high interelement mutual coupling.

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