A New Dielectric Grating Antenna for Millimeter-Wave Applications

The leakage properties of a new dielectric grating leaky wave antenna are carefully examined by an approach of combining the multimode network theory with the mode-matching method. A systematic comparison is given for the leaky characteristics of the n=-1 space harmonic of TM mode polarization between the present antenna and the traditional one. It has been found that the former not only has the advantage of lower conductor loss, but also is of larger leakage constant than the latter. As a result, the dimension of the antenna could be largely reduced, which is of practical significance for some applications. Extensive numerical results of the radiation characteristics are given to establish useful guidelines for the design of the new grating antenna. Furthermore, special features such as cancellation or resonance effects are high-lighted and discussed. Physical insights for the mathematical findings are also presented.