On scaling properties of the dispersion diagram of a multi-scale printed surface embedded in a parallel-plate waveguide

A device consisting of a patterned surface composed of metal patches embedded in a parallel plate waveguide and relying on strip-line technology is considered. The unit cell of the patterned surface contains a metal patch with a multi-scale shape and a large number of vias connecting the patch to the ground plane. The large number of reactive elements obtained in this way introduces an equally large number of resonances and consequently a dispersion diagram with several electromagnetic band-gaps is obtained. The device may be applied to multi-band filtering, antenna feeders and parallel-plate noise mitigation. The problem of the scalability of the device is addressed.