A high-order TE₅₀ mode waveguide with single mode transmission property and its application in slot array antenna

Abstract

Conventional array antenna techniques contain various feeding networks, such as T-junction power dividers, phase dividers, and baluns. To feed a relatively large array, one can cascade the traditional T-junction power dividers, resulting in the increase of design complexity. In this paper, an overmoded waveguide supporting the single mode propagation of TE50 mode, is presented. Since TE50 mode can be separated into 5 TE10 modes with equiamplitude and opposite phase properties, it’s advisable to distribute the input signal flexibly and decrease the cascading of the T-junctions for the traditional feeding networks. To actualize a TE50 mode waveguide, several rows of metallic blocks acting as metamaterial are periodically loaded inside an overmoded waveguide to tailor the dispersion of the waveguide modes and yield the proposed mode bandgaps. Considering the Bloch theory, parts of the undesired waveguide modes are not supported inside the metamaterial and will be removed by these bandgaps. In addition, central feeding method is used to suppress the unwanted modes further in light of mode mismatch. As a proof-of-concept, we drilled the slot array on the top of the overmoded waveguide directly and give rise to a pencil beam radiation along the broadside with 15-17 dBi realized gain among 9.4-10.6 GHz, which demonstrates the stable feeding ability of TE50 mode.