ISSN 15474771, Physics of Particles and Nuclei Letters, 2015, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 362–370.

© Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2015.

Original Russian Text © A.V. Maksimenko, G.I. Zaginaylov, V.I. Shcherbinin, 2015, published in Pis’ma v Zhurnal Fizika Elementarnykh Chastits i Atomnogo Yadra, 2015.

COMPUTER TECHNOLOGIES
IN PHYSICS

On the Theory of Longitudinally Inhomogeneous Waveguides

with Impedance Walls
A. V. Maksimenkoa, *, G. I. Zaginaylova, b, and V. I. Shcherbinina
a
Science and Production Establishment Renewable Energy Sources and Sustainable Technologies,
National Science Center, Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, Kharkiv, 61108 Ukraine
bKarazin National University, Kharkiv, 61022 Ukraine

*email: maksimenko.mcme@yandex.ru

Abstract—The Maxwell equations for longitudinally inhomogeneous (irregular) waveguides with impedance
walls are reduced equivalently to a system of ordinary differential equations by applying transverse expan
sions. The obtained system of equations for amplitudes of the coupled modes is used to analyze gyrotron cav
ities. Specifically, the effect of mode conversion and ohmic losses on the eigenfrequencies, quality factors,
and field distributions in the gyrotron cavities operating in the submillimeter range is investigated.

Keywords: irregular waveguides, impedance boundary conditions, lossy waveguides, crosssection methods,
Neumann and Dirichlet problems, terahertz radiation, terahertz gyrotrons, gyrotron cavities, quality factors,
resonance frequency

DOI: 10.1134/S1547477115020168

INTRODUCTION
Longitudinally inhomogeneous waveguides of dif
ferent types (electromagnetic, optical, acoustic, elas
tic, etc.) are the subject of extensive and intense
research. Impedance boundary conditions are also
quite widespread. Specifically, they may be used to
describe the natural attenuation at metallic surfaces
and model periodic and rough surfaces, thin dielectric
and metallic layers, composite materials, etc. Thus,
the theory of longitudinally inhomogeneous
waveguides with impedance walls may help to solve a
wide variety of applied problems.
Although approaches to the analysis of longitudi
nally inhomogeneous waveguides vary to a certain
extent, their theory is based on the crosssection
methods [1–3] that generalize the method of separa
tion of variables. These methods employ the concept
of a reference waveguide (a regular waveguide with a
cross section that equals the cross section of an irregu
lar waveguide at the given longitudinal coordinate
value). The fields at an arbitrary cross section of an
irregular waveguide are expanded into twodimen
sional [1, 3] or threedimensional [2] series in terms of
fields of the reference waveguide. It is known that the
latter fields may be obtained easily via the separation
of variables. A lesser known approach based on scalar
expansions of longitudinal fields [4] should also be
mentioned. This approach also allows one to reduce a
system of Maxwell equations to a system of ordinary
differential equations (SODE) for expansion coeffi
cients, but has not found wide application due to its
complexity.
The abovementioned techniques and their various
modifications are applied successfully to waveguides
with ideal boundary conditions. However, the use of
more realistic (impedance) boundary conditions pre
sents considerable mathematical and computational
difficulties [5]. If a regular impedance waveguide is
taken as a reference waveguide, its eigenfields do not
necessarily form a basis. Although a basis may theoret
ically be formed with the use of eigenfunctions and
associated functions of such a waveguide, this
approach has not found wide application and the asso
ciated functions were analyzed only for a few of the
most simple geometries (see, for example, [5]). If the
vector fields of a reference waveguide with ideal walls
are used as basis functions, the problem may not be
reduced equivalently to a SODE [6].
An alternative approach based on the preliminary
transformation of an irregular waveguide into a regular
one with inhomogeneous anisotropic filling [7, 8] via
the introduction of curvilinear coordinates may also
be used. However, it involves a great deal of analytic
transformations and numerical calculations, is not
always practical, and is applicable only to a limited
number of cross sections.
The approach proposed below is based on scalar
expansions of fields in a cross section, though it does
not rely on the concept of a reference waveguide. Sca
lar expansions generally converge better and are more
flexible. The latter property allows one to obtain a

362
 ON THE THEORY OF LONGITUDINALLY INHOMOGENEOUS WAVEGUIDES 363

n' n

τ
θ
iz
iϕ

S(z)

C(z)

Fig. 1. Longitudinally inhomogeneous waveguide.

SODE directly from the Maxwell equations with no
simplifying assumptions in the case of irregular
waveguides with impedance walls.
For illustrative purposes, the obtained SODE is
used to analyze a gyrotron cavity operating in the ter
ahertz range. It is known [9] that gyrotrons are prom
ising sources of intense terahertz radiation. They may
be used efficiently in such terahertz radiation applica
tions as the dynamic polarization of nuclei in nuclear
magnetic resonance spectroscopy [10], the study of
the fine structure of positronium [11], remote sensing
of concealed radioactive materials [12], the produc
tion of plasma [13], etc. However, the efficiency of ter
ahertz gyrotron operation is still relatively low. This is
caused by the fact that dissipation effects (specifically,
high ohmic losses in the cavity walls) are prominent in
gyrotron cavities. It is known that these losses may be
modeled efficiently via the introduction of impedance
boundary conditions [5]. This necessitates the devel
opment of an adequate theory of energy losses in tera
hertz gyrotron cavities due to the conversion and
ohmic attenuation of modes. By virtue of its generality,
this theory is also of importance for many other appli
cations (specifically, the analysis of converters
[14, 15]; the transport of charged particle beams in
waveguides [16]; the propagation of waves in irregular
elastic [17], acoustic [18, 19], and optical [20]
waveguides; etc.).
with ideal walls (see, for example, [1, 2, 21, 22] and
references therein). In the latter case, either the com
plete threedimensional fields of a regular waveguide
with ideal walls [1] (reference waveguide) or only the
transverse components of the reference fields [2] were
used as vector basis functions. Since it is not possible
(see, for example, [6]) to generalize these methods for
irregular impedance waveguides (except for planar
waveguides [23]), we describe below another approach
that allows one to do this [21, 22]. This approach does
not use vector basis functions (and, consequently, the
whole reference waveguide concept) be discarded. The
electromagnetic fields in an arbitrary transverse sec
tion of an irregular waveguide (see Fig. 1) are instead
expressed in terms of a pair of scalar functions (the
magnetic and electric Hertz potentials) that satisfy
one and the same Helmholtz equation [5]:
2 2 2
( Δ ⊥ + ∂ /∂z + k )Ψ = 0,
(1)
2 2 2
( Δ ⊥ + ∂ /∂z + k )Φ = 0,
where k = ω/c, c is the speed of light in vacuum, ω is
the oscillation frequency, and the time factor e–iωt is
omitted.
Let us represent the unknown functions in the fol
lowing form [21, 22]:
∞ ∞

REDUCTION
Ψ = ∑ A ( z )Ψ ( r
i i ⊥ ;z ), Φ = ∑ B ( z )Φ ( r
i i ⊥ ;z ), (2)
i=1 i=1
OF THE MAXWELL EQUATIONS
TO A SYSTEM OF ORDINARY where Ψi ( r ⊥ ;z ) and Φi ( r ⊥ ;z ) are the eigenfunctions of
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS the Dirichlet and Neumann problems, respectively,
The direct reduction of the Maxwell equations to a for the Laplace operator in the twodimensional
system of onedimensional differential equations for region S(z):
longitudinally inhomogeneous impedance waveguides 2 2
with the use of various transverse expansions presents ( Δ ⊥ + α i )Ψ i = 0 ( Δ ⊥ + β i )Φ i = 0
no particular analytical difficulties and is performed in (3)
the same manner as for inhomogeneous waveguides ∂Ψ i /∂n C(z)
= 0 Φi C(z)
= 0 r ⊥ ∈ S ( z ).

PHYSICS OF PARTICLES AND NUCLEI LETTERS Vol. 12 No. 2 2015