Cut-off Frequency of a Coaxial Ca-

ble

ELEC-E7410 Communication Transmission Lines

Jari Lietzén 2.5.2016

Department of Communications and Networking

The field pattern of a coaxial line

The lowest order mode propagating on a coaxial line is Transversal

Electric and Magnetic field (TEM) mode. The propagating field has
no electric or magnetic field components in the direction of propa-
gation (in the direction of z-axis) i.e. both the electric field and the
magnetic field are transversal (see chapter 3.2).

Normally the cable is designed in such a way that the cut-off fre-
quencies of the higher order modes (TM and TE) are well above
the operating frequency. Even in that case these modes can be of
importance near discontinuities.

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Cut-off frequency of a coaxial cable

The upper limit of a coaxial line is called the cut-of frequency and it
can be approximated by:

2c
fc ≈ √
(D + d )π r

D = diameter of the outer conductor

d = diameter of the inner conductor

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An example

What is the cut-off frequency of a 50 Ω coaxial cable when the diam-

eter of the inner conductor is d = 2.64 mm and the diameter of the
outer conductor is D = 9.5 mm? Relative dielectric coefficient is
r = 2.28.
2c
fc ≈ √
(D + d )π r

2 · 3 · 108
= √
(0.0095 + 0.00264)π 2.28
= 10.4 GHz

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