Reduction of the number of unknowns in large stacked planar structures by a fringe aperture formulation

For scattering problems comprising a combination of planar structures, the total number of unknowns may be significantly reduced if an aperture formulation is employed rather than a patch formulation. The rationale behind using the aperture formulation is based on the recognition that the decay rate of the scattered aperture field is independent of the size of the scatterer. Therefore, any scatterer may be surrounded by an aperture of fixed width over which an integral equation is formulated. The area of this aperture is proportional to the perimeter of the scatterer rather than its area, and it becomes much smaller compared with the entire scatterer area as the size of the scatterer increases, hence the reduction in the number of independent unknowns. A truncation criterion for the finite aperture is determined via a numerical study of the aperture field behavior for various angles of incidence. In addition, the a priori knowledge of the physical optics component is also taken into account, reducing the unknown function to an aperture field component that is the outcome of the remaining fringe current only. The total current distribution can be subsequently derived from this field by adding the known physical optics field and invoking the inverse of the Green´s function in the spectral domain. This analysis of isolated planar scatterers results in a spectral scattering matrix representation that is subsequently used for cascading of stacked structures