Arbitrary Electromagnetic Conductor Boundaries Using Faraday Rotation in a Grounded Ferrite Slab

The realization of arbitrary perfect electromagnetic conductor boundaries by a grounded ferrite slab using Faraday rotation is proposed. This is the first practical realization of a perfect electromagnetic conductor boundary to the authors´ knowledge. The key principle of the grounded ferrite perfect electromagnetic conductor boundary is the combination of Faraday rotation and reflection from the perfect electric conductor of the ground plane. From this combined effect, arbitrary angles between the incident and reflected fields can be obtained at the surface of the slab, so as to achieve arbitrary perfect electromagnetic conductor conditions by superposition with the incident field. An exact electromagnetic analysis of the structure is performed based on the generalized scattering matrix method and an in-depth description of its operation phenomenology is provided. As an illustration, a tunable transverse electromagnetic (TEM) waveguide with grounded ferrite PMC lateral walls is demonstrated experimentally. Due to its flexibility in the control of the polarization of the reflected field, the proposed grounded ferrite perfect electromagnetic conductor may find applications in various types of reflectors and polarization-based radio frequency identifiers.