540

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MAY 2011

Maximum Power Radiated From an Aperture Antenna

Before Air Breakdown in the Near-Field Region
Jian-Hua Zhang and Jian-Lu Wang
AbstractAs we know, air breakdown would occur if the power of a microwave pulse, which radiates from an aperture antenna, was high enough,
the transmission of microwave could be hindered. Based upon this assumption, this paper intends to report on the mathematical deduction of the
maximum power radiated from an aperture antenna before air breakdown
in the near-field region. It also presents the calculations in the power density enhancement factors corresponding to different kinds of aperture field
distributions in the near-field region of a circular cophasal aperture. In addition, this paper also proposes a formula by the field equivalence principle
for calculating the normalized power density on axis. The results showed
that the air breakdown in the near-field region could be a limiting factor for
the maximum power, depending on aperture radius, the field distribution
in the aperture plane, the frequency, and the pulse width of a microwave
pulse.
Index TermsAperture antennas, dielectric breakdown, microwave
power transmission, microwave propagation.

I. INTRODUCTION
For a long time, microwave breakdown has remained one of the
key issues in the study of microwave technology [1], [2], owing to
the fact that it can strongly affect the transmission of microwave with
high power [3], [4]. Therefore, considerable research attention has
been paid to various microwave breakdowns, which mainly occur at
dielectricvacuum interface, at dielectricair interface, in dielectric
material, and in atmospheric air [5][15]. Up to now, many experimental and theoretical results have been obtained for surface flashover,
exhibiting that the breakdown threshold has close relations with dielectric material, frequency, pulse width, pressure, etc. [6][13]. The
typical electric field strength thresholds of surface flashover including
dielectricvacuum interface flashover [1], [10], [14] and dielectricair
interface flashover [5][8], [11][13] are in the range of 1.29 MV/m.
Compared to surface breakdown, the breakdown within a perfect dielectric material can be neglected since the breakdown threshold is
about 100 MV/m. In general, the window surface flashover has been
considered a major factor that affects the transmission of high-power
microwave (HPM) radiation [3], [13]. However, the air breakdown in
near-field region could possibly be another factor that could severely
affect the transmission of an aperture antenna with high power, a fact
that has been seldom considered until now.
Herein, we report the mathematical deduction of the maximum
power radiated from an aperture antenna before air breakdown in the
near-field region. The antennas maximum power flux density of radiation is usually in the near-field region, and is much larger than that
on the aperture surface in some cases, which is introduced in Section
III later. Here comes a question: Is there any air breakdown for an
aperture antenna before dielectric window breakdown? To answer this
question, two problems have to be solved. One is that how much larger

the antenna radiation power density in the near-field region is than that
on the aperture? We concentrate on planar aperture antennas because
some canonical HPM antennas, such as horns and offset Cassegrain
system [4], can be clearly analyzed as apertures. Using the field equivalence principle [16] and the potential function, we can derive the
formula to calculate the power density distributions in the near-field
region of an aperture antenna. If (defined as the enhancement factor, hereafter) be the ratio of the antennas maximum radiation power
density in the near-field region to the maximum power density on the
aperture, we can get the data of ranging from 1.1 to 4. Another problem that we have to solve is: Whether air breakdown threshold power
is less than times that of the dielectric window breakdown threshold power? The air breakdown and its mechanisms have so far been
extensively studied [2], [15]. For example, Ali has given the empirical
formulas about the ionization frequency and the momentum transfer collision frequency for calculating air breakdown threshold [15].
The results from Hemmerts group showed that the breakdown thresholds of an electric field at alumina/vacuum interface, at alumina/air
interface, and in air (at frequency of 2.85 GHz and pulse duration
of 3 s) were about 1.2, 1.2, and 1.51.6 MV/m, respectively [9]. In
order to increase window breakdown threshold, some methods, such
as multipactor suppressing coating, surface treatment, RF structure design, dielectric window material improvement, and changing the gas
filling the waveguide, have been successfully developed [1], e.g., the
flashover electric field at the air/dielectric interface was increased by
40% by applying surface grooves [6].
In this paper, we try to give a further presumption that if the air
breakdown threshold power is less than times that of the dielectric window breakdown threshold, the breakdown would occur in the
antennas near-field region other than on the dielectric surface of an
aperture so that the antenna transmitting power would be limited by the
air breakdown. Therefore, to investigate the maximum power radiated
from an aperture antenna before air breakdown in the near-field region
is of importance for microwave techniques.

II. PULSE POWER FLUX DENSITY ON AXIS

If an aperture antenna is located in the xy plane, the elec Ex a (r ! , ) +
tric and magnetic fields on the aperture are E a = x
Hx a (r ! , ) + y
Hy a (r ! , ), respectively,
Ey a (r ! , ) and H a = x
y
where Ex a /Hy a = Ey a /Hx a = , and is the wave impedance.
To calculate the radiation field from an aperture, the field equivalence principle is used. Accordingly, there are three forms of equivalent current: 1) electric and magnetic currents; 2) the equivalent electric current alone; and 3) the equivalent magnetic current alone [16].
The numerical results of axial power flux density by all three methods are identical. Therefore, the equivalent electric current alone is
presented as
z Ha =
J e = 2

2E a
.

(1)

The corresponding vector potential is given by

Manuscript received July 18, 2010; revised October 19, 2010 and December
22, 2010; accepted January 20, 2011. Date of publication March 10, 2011; date
of current version May 20, 2011.
J.-H. Zhang is with State Key Laboratory of Pulsed Power Laser Technology,
Hefei Electronic Engineering Institute, Hefei, Anhui 230037, China (e-mail:
zhangjh@ustc.edu).
J.-L. Wang is with the Information Engineering Department, Hefei
Electronic Engineering Institute, Hefei, Anhui 230037, China (e-mail:
wangjianlu123@sina.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEMC.2011.2112366

A(r, ) =

0
2

S!

Ey a (r ! , )]
[
xEx a (r ! , ) + y

ej k R
dS ! (2)
R

where k = 0 0 , 0 and 0 are the free space permittivity and

permeability, respectively, is the microwaves angular frequency,
and R is the distance between the field point r and the source point
r ! . The magnetic field and the electric field generated by the current

0018-9375/$26.00 2011 IEEE

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MAY 2011

source can be written as follows:

1
A(r, )
H (r, ) =
0
=

1
2

"

ej k R

S!

jk
1
+ 3
R2
R

541

zEx a + z
[(x x! )
{
xzEy a + y
Ey a (y y ! )Ex a ]} dS !

(3a)

1
H (r, )
E(r, ) =
j0
=

! $ "

1
j20
+

"

S!

jk
1
3
R2
R

k 2
j3k
3
+ 4 + 5
3
R
R
R

&

'

Ey a )
(
xEx a + y

Fig. 1. Normalized power density distribution of the uniform aperture on axis

( = 100T0 ).

{
x Ex a (y y ! )2 + z 2 Ey a (x x! )(y y ! )

&

! 2

Ey a (x x ) + z
+y

'

[Ex a (x x )z + Ey a (y y )z]
z
!

Ex a (x x )(y y )
!

j k R

When the aperture field is uniform, i.e., Ea (r ! , ) = Ea (),

Re (F1 F2 ) in (6) can be simplified as
Re(F1 F2 ) =

|E()|2
2

dS .

(3b)

! / 2

1
=
2

E(r, ) H (r, )d

Re [E(r, ) H (r, )] d.

(4)

For the sake of comparison, the power density P(r) can be normalized
to the maximum power density on the aperture as
2
P (r)
=
p(r) = 2
E0 /2

*
0

Re [E(r, ) H (r, )] r d
E02

(5)

where E0 is the maximum electric field amplitude on the aperture.

On this basis, we concentrate on the circular aperture antenna of radius a, with the assumption that the phase is constant across the aperture
Ea (r ! , ). By
and the aperture electric field is x-directed, i.e., E a = x
simplifying (3)(5), the normalized power density along the z-direction
can be written as follows:
2

p(z) =
where
F1 =

F2 = z

Ea (r ! , )

"

r !2
+ z2
2
a

"

Re (F1 F2 ) d
E02

(6)

jk
3
3
+ 4 +
R3
R
jkR5

ej k R r ! dr !

Ea (r , )
!

"

1+

,2

&
'
cos k( a2 + z 2 z)

z2
2
a + z2

/)

.
(8)

III. CALCULATION OF ENHANCEMENT FACTOR

1
=

z
a2 + z 2

z
a2 +z2

.
a2

sin
k(
a2 + z 2 z)
k(a2 + z 2 )3 / 2

E(r, t) H (r, t)dt

/ 2

2 1+

If HPM is the sine wave modulated by a rectangular pulse, and the

pulse width is , the radiated power flux density can be written as
1
P (r) =

"

jk
1
+ 3
R2
R

(7a)

j k R !

r dr .

(7b)

The radiated power density of aperture is closely related to pulse

width , pulse center angular frequency 0 , and antenna radius a.
The axial distribution of the normalized power density for the uniform
aperture is calculated by using (6), and some typical results are shown
in Fig. 1. The abscissa is the normalized distance z = z/(D2 /0 ),
where D is the diameter of circular aperture and 0 is the wavelength
corresponding to the center angular frequency 0 . The rectangular
pulse width is set to 100T0 (where T0 is the period corresponding to
0 ). Fig. 1 shows two curves for a/0 = 1 and a/0 = 4. The curve
corresponding to a/0 = 4 fluctuates between z = 0 and 0.1 because
of interference. The normalized radiated power density p(z) reaches
maximum pm about 2.83.9 around the location z = a2 /0 .
The enhancement factor on axis can be expressed as
p(z)] .
= pm = max [
z

(9)

Figs. 2 and 3 show how varies with pulse width and antenna radius
for the uniform aperture. The results show that
1) increases with a/0 and tends to be constant beyond a/0 = 5;
2) varies very little with different /T0 beyond 20;
3) if a > 50 and > 20T0 , can be approximately taken as 4.
Many practical antennas, such as a parabolic reflector, have distributions that taper toward the edges of apertures. These distributions can
be approximated by functions of the form [16]
Ea (r ! ) =

"

r !2
a2

#n

E0 ,

n = 0, 1, 2, 3, . . . .

(10)

For n = 0, (10) reduces to uniform distribution. n = 1 and 2 correspond to parabolic taper and parabolic taper squared distributions,
respectively.

542

Fig. 2.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MAY 2011

Enhancement factor of uniform aperture versus radius.

Fig. 5.

Breakdown threshold field versus pulse width.

TABLE I
AND VALUE CORRESPONDING TO DIFFERENT FIELD DISTRIBUTION

Fig. 3.

Enhancement factor of uniform aperture versus pulse width.

circular waveguide mode, the enhancement factor on axis is below 1,

for the cross-polarization components is antisymmetrical with respect
to the principle planes and their radiated field vanishes on axis.
IV. CALCULATION OF THE MAXIMUM OUTPUT POWER
The threshold for air breakdown is related to microwave frequency,
pulse width, atmospheric density and composition, initial electron density, etc. For example, at given frequency f = 3 GHz and air pressure p
= 760 torr, the air breakdown threshold field Erm s versus is shown in
Fig. 5, by using the empirical formulas in [15], without involving pulse
repetition frequency and air breakdown process. The curve in Fig. 5 is
piecewise smooth because the empirical formulas in [15] are piecewise
fitted.
The air breakdown threshold power density is

Fig. 4. Enhancement factor of parabolic taper with pedestal (dotted line) and
parabolic taper (solid line) versus radius.

The field distribution of an optimum parabolic reflector can be approximated by a parabolic taper with pedestal, which can be written
as
0
"
#1
r !2
!
E0 .
(11)
Ea (r ) = 0.3 + 0.7 1 2
a

The general tendency of versus a for the nonuniform apertures

is quite similar to that of the uniform aperture, as shown in Fig. 4. If
a > 50 and > 20T0 , can be approximately taken as 1.9 for the
parabolic taper with pedestal and 1.59 for the parabolic taper.
Further investigation to the sine wave modulated by a Gaussian pulse
shows a similar enhancement factor in comparison with that modulated
by the rectangular pulse, on condition that the pulse widths are almost
the same.
It is worth noting that the enhancement factor corresponding to other
field (phase and magnitude) distribution could be calculated using (5).
For example, the enhancement factor on axis is in the range of 1
1.8 when the aperture field distribution is in the TE1 0 rectangular
waveguide mode. When the aperture field distribution is in the TE1 1

Pth =

2
Erm
s
.
0

(12)

When the value of the maximum radiated power density of the

aperture antenna reaches Pth , the antenna output power approaches
the upper limit. For a circular cophasal aperture, the maximum output
power can be written as
P0 m a x

Pth
=

S!

|Ea (r ! )|2 dS !
SPth
=
E02

(13)

where S is the area of the aperture, Ea (r! ) is the aperture field distribution, and is
SE02
.
(14)
= *
|Ea (r ! )|2 dS !
S!

When a > 50 and > 20T0 , and values corresponding to

different field distributions are listed in Table I, which are useful in
estimating the enhancement effect of the typical field distribution and
the upper limiting power that can be sustained in the near-field region
of the aperture by (13).
For uniform and tapered distribution apertures with a = 0.5 m and
f = 3 GHz, the maximum output power is shown in Fig. 6.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MAY 2011

Fig. 6.

Maximum power versus pulse width.

V. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we have obtained the maximum power radiated from
some typical cophasal aperture antennas before air breakdown in the
near-field region by calculating the normalized power flux density on
axis of a circular aperture, and by calculating the enhancement factors of different aperture field distributions with various aperture size
and pulse width. The maximum power density in the near-field region
is much larger than that on the aperture surface for uniform aperture
field and parabolic taper with pedestal aperture field, on condition that
a > 50 and > 20T0 . Under this condition, the antenna transmitting
power is limited by the air breakdown, which might occur in the nearfield region. If 1, the maximum output power will most likely be
limited by the breakdown threshold at the dielectricair interface. However, the aperture distributions we discussed previously are the simple
ones. Some practical antennas, such as impulse-radiating antennas [17],
and focused aperture antennas [18], have much more complicated distributions. Therefore, more investigations are still being carried on in
the surface flashovers and the air breakdown in the near-field region of
practical antennas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Prof. D.-B. Yu and Prof. H.-P. Wu
of Hefei Electronic Engineering Institute for their kind help in English
writing.
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[4] C. D. Taylor and D. V. Giri, High-Power Microwave Systems and Effects,
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2006.
[8] J. Krile, G. Edmiston, A. Neuber, J. Dickens, and H. Krompholz, Similarities of dielectric surface flashover at atmospheric condition for pulsed
unipolar and RF excitation, in Proc. 15th Pulse Power Conf., Monterey,
CA, Jun.2005, pp. 354357.

543

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and M. Kristiansen, High power microwave breakdown under vacuum
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SPIE, Orlando, FL, Apr. 2000, pp. 9098.
[10] D. Shiffler, G. Baca, T. Englert, M. D. Haworth, K. J. Hendricks, D. Henley, M. Sena, and T. A. Spencer, Investigation of RF breakdown on the
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[11] S. K. Nam and J. P. Verboncoeur, Global model for high power microwave
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[12] S. K. Nam and J. P. Verboncoeur, Effect of electron energy distribution
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pressures, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 92, no. 23, pp. 231502-1231502-3,
Jun. 2008.
[13] J. T. Krile, A. A. Neuber, and H. G. Krompholz, Monte Carlo simulation
of high power microwave window breakdown at atmospheric conditions,
Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 89, no. 20, pp. 201501-1201501-3, Nov. 2006.
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Rep. 5815, Aug. 1986.
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Radio Frequency Interference and Lightning Studies of a

Square Kilometre Array Demonstrator Structure
P. Gideon Wiid, Howard C. Reader, and Riana H. Geschke
AbstractWe study the radio frequency interference and lightning protection of the South African Square Kilometre Array demonstrator: the
Karoo Array Telescope. Increasingly-realistic scale models of the demonstrator have been built and computationally modeled using FEKO.
Minimally-invasive S-parameter measurements are made on physical scale
models in an anechoic chamber with good agreement to simulation. The
modeling has enabled insightful investigations into current paths and field
distributions for interference mitigation and structure lightning protection,
with direct bearing on the demonstrator implementation.
Index TermsCurrent density, electromagnetic interference, lightning,
measurement, modeling, moment methods.

Manuscript received August 27, 2009; revised May 24, 2010; accepted
January 20, 2011. Date of publication March 24, 2011; date of current version
May 20, 2011. This work was supported by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA),
Western Cape, South Africa.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Electronic, Faculty of
Engineering, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, Western Cape 7600, South
Africa (e-mail: gideonwiid@gmail.com; hcreader@sun.ac.za; hansmann@
sun.ac.za).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEMC.2011.2113185

0018-9375/$26.00 2011 IEEE