Equivalent-Network Analysis of Propagation and Radiation Features in Wire-Medium Loaded Planar Structures

Planar multilayer dielectric structures that include wire-medium (WM) slabs with vertically aligned wires are studied by means of an effective equivalent transmission-line approach based on the homogenized representation of the WM layers. Modal properties are thereby retrieved via transverse resonance, whereas radiative properties of elementary sources are calculated via reciprocity. The proposed approach is employed to show the possibility of suppressing TEM propagation in WM-loaded parallel-plate waveguides as well as of achieving wideband radiation from TM leaky modes in partially open configurations. The features thus gained are of interest for the realization of Fabry-Perot cavity antennas with linearly polarized conical patterns and wide-angular scanning ranges. Numerical results obtained with state-of-art simulation software confirm the accuracy and numerical effectiveness of the proposed formulation.