Analytical Modeling of a Two-Dimensional Waveguide-Fed Metasurface

Abstract: We develop a fast, accurate, and robust technique to model the electromagnetic response of a two-dimensional (2D) waveguide-fed metasurface aperture. The geometry under consideration consists of a parallel-plate waveguide with an array of subwavelength, complementary metamaterial elements patterned into one of the conducting surfaces. To determine the radiated field, we model each radiating element as a polarizable dipole, and account for mutual interactions among elements via guided and radiated fields by applying a coupled dipole framework. Using full-wave simulations of parallel-plate waveguides with two types of metamaterial elements, we confirm the validity of the proposed coupled dipole model and demonstrate the ability to predict radiation patterns corresponding to arbitrarily arranged elements. We explore the importance of including the mutual coupling among metamaterial elements to arrive at accurate field predictions. The coupled dipole modeling framework presented is scalable to extremely large apertures and can form the foundation for a general, efficient, yet simple aperture analysis and synthesis tool.