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Green's function for an infinite slot printed between two homogeneous

dielectrics. I. Magnetic currents

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation · August 2003

DOI: 10.1109/TAP.2003.813625 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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1572
Green’s Function for an Infinite Slot Printed Between
Two Homogeneous Dielectrics—Part I:
Magnetic Currents
Andrea Neto, Member, IEEE, and Stefano Maci, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This sequence of papers presents an analytical closed
form for the Green’s function of an infinite slot printed between
two different homogeneous dielectrics. This first part is devoted to
the derivation of the slot magnetic current and to the discussion
of the relevant physical implications. The Fourier spectrum of the
magnetic current is derived by solving in analytical form, under
small width approximation, the integral equation (IE) representing
the continuity of the magnetic field trough the slot axis. The ac-
curacy of the result is validated trough a fine meshing Method of
Moments. From the consequent spectral expression, a closed form
approximation of the leaky-wave propagation and attenuation con-
stants is derived. An asymptotic expression for the current is also
obtained by steepest descent path evaluation of the pertinent spec-
tral integral. Analytical expressions of the quasi static (reactive)
contribution is given for both elementary dipole and delta gap ex-
citations. The asymptotic, uniform closed form approximation for
the field in every space point will be formulated and discussed in
the second part of the paper.
Index Terms—Green’s function, leaky wave antennas, slot an-
tennas, slot lines.
I. INTRODUCTION
I N THIS paper, we derive an analytical form for the Green’s
function (GF) of an infinite slot printed between two
different homogeneous dielectrics, and excited by an electric
dipole transverse to the slot. The paper is splitted in two parts.
This Part I formulates the problem up to the derivation of the
slot magnetic current, and prepares the successive uniform
high-frequency evaluation of the Green’s function presented in
Part II [1].
At difference with respect to slot line printed on dielectric slab
or grounded dielectric slab, where the phase velocity of the dom-
inant mode is less than the speed of light of the environment, for
the present structure the phase velocity of the dominant mode is
greater than the speed of light in the denser medium, thus pro-
ducing there a significant radiation. Consequently the structure
is more a leaky antenna rather than a guiding structure.
The slot printed on infinite slab, together with and the
coplanar waveguide on infinite slab, find application in sub-
Manuscript received July 25, 2001; revised January 23, 2002. This work was
supported in part by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Tech-
nology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
and Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI).
A. Neto was with the Sub-mm Wave Advanced Technology Group,
Caltech-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109 USA. He is now with
FEL-TNO, Den Haag 2597 AK, The Netherlands.
S. Maci is with the Department of Information Engineering, University of
Siena, Siena 53100, Italy.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TAP.2003.813625
0018-926X/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 7, JULY 2003
millimiter wave receivers integrated with dielectric lenses [2].
The lens, which is used as focusing system, because of its large
extension in terms of the wavelength, is typically investigated
as an infinite dielectric with corrections a posteriori to account
for internal reflections [3], [4].
A useful application of the present study is concerned with
the definition of appropriate basis functions to be applied in a
full-wave analysis of resonant slot antennas of various shapes
[5], with the inclusion of attachment modes to the feed-line. In
this case, the philosophy is similar to that of the characteristic
mode of the slot introduced in [6], [7].
When dealing with the Green’s function (GF) of two-di-
mensional (2-D) structures excited by a source dipole, as the
present one, one can find a formal solution from spectral syn-
thesis of 2-D GF; i.e., by integrating on a continuous spectral
wavenumber, the structure response to phased line sources. The
fundamental steps of this procedure can be found in the book
of Felsen and Marcuvitz [8], with reference to structures which
possess a closed form 2-D GF. Note that this latter GF may be
obtained by a further spectral synthesis from the response to
a plane wave illumination. Concerning an infinite slot in free
space, the 2-D exact solution for plane wave illumination can
be obtained by the Wiener-Hopf technique [9] or alternatively
by a degeneration case of an eigen-mode solution of the wave
equation separated in elliptical coordinates. However, the
extension of these exact solutions to a case of a dielectric
half-space appears quite cumbersome.
A useful application of the spectral synthesis has been pre-
sented in [10] for scattering and antenna problems; there the
2-D-GF has been calculated numerically for each longitudinal
spectral wavenumber by solving 2-D integral equations for the
transverse section.
With reference to open waveguiding structure, the spectral
synthesis leads to a continuous spectrum of modes which has
poles at the solution of the dispersion equation, i.e., at the
wavenumbers of the leaky wave modes. A dedicated treatment
of the open waveguide structures is carried out in the book by
Rozzi and Mongiardo [11], with emphasis on slot lines etched
on waveguides (see chapter 7 and 8, and reference therein).
A quite general treatment of the Green’s function of
open waveguiding structures has been recently presented in
[12]–[14]. These works focused the attention on the analysis of
the continuous mode spectrum and its connection with the leaky
mode propagation and radiation mechanisms; specific reference
was done to strip-line shielded structure [12] and micro-strip
lines [13]. In [14], the approach has been formally extended to
NETO AND MACI: GREEN’S FUNCTION FOR AN INFINITE SLOT 1573

a quite general class of open wave-guide problems under the

assumption of separability of the current functional dependence
for the longitudinal and transverse coordinates; there, derivation
and interpretation of the longitudinal wavenumber spectrum of
the currents and of the relevant singularities is presented.
Our solution procedure, while following essentially that de-
veloped in [12]–[14], leads to an easily computable closed form
expression for the solution of the dispersion equation and for
the magnetic current. As in [12]–[14], the separability between
transverse and longitudinal space functional dependence is as-
sumed for the magnetic currents. The procedure to find the space
domain magnetic current (Section II) consists in
i) expanding via Fourier transform the transverse im-
pressed electric dipole source in terms of spectral
superposition of electric currents progressively phased
by ;
ii) finding in analytical form for each , the 2-D-GF by
imposing the continuity of the magnetic field at the slot
axis; Fig. 1. Infinite slot excited by an electric dipole. The slot is etched in an infinite
iii) integrating in the 2-D-GF. ground plane between two different half spaces with dielectric constant  (z >
0) and  (z < 0); we assume  >  .
We emphasize that we express the solution in explicit analyt-
ical form thanks to the assumption of a given respecting quasi-
static edge-singularities, transverse coordinate dependence of currents are assumed to be perfectly polarized along , as
the magnetic currents. widely accepted.
The closed form expression of the spectrum allows the The integral equation which expresses the enforcement of the
analytical definition of the slot dispersion equation and the appropriate continuity through the slot axis of the total
corresponding complex (leaky) wave-number solution (Sec- magnetic field, can be written as
tion III). On the other hand (Section IV), a contour deformation
on steepest descent path of the Fourier spectral integral and the (1)
subsequent asymptotic evaluation leads to a closed form ex-
pression of the slot magnetic currents as the sum of leaky-wave
currents plus fringe current contributions; these contributions where is the slot region. The LHS of (1) represents the dif-
arise from a pole residue and from the steepest descent path ference between the magnetic fields at radiated in the
evaluation, respectively. grounded half-space regions 1 and 2 by the magnetic currents
The asymptotic part of the spectrum (quasi static contribution and , respectively. According to the image theorem, one
in the spatial domain) leads to a simple description of the quasi has
static field for both elementary dipole (Section V) and delta-gap
(Section VI) excitations. For the latter case analytical approxi- (2)
mations of the magnetic current are presented, which are useful
for estimating the input impedance. where and are the pertinent homogeneous space
Green’s function of the media 1 and 2, respectively. As an-
ticipated, the magnetic current distribution is assumed to be
II. FORMULATION characterized by a separable space-dependence with respect to
The geometry under investigation, presented in Fig. 1, con- and ; i.e.
sists of an infinite -oriented slot which is printed on an infinite
ground plane between two homogeneous dielectric half-spaces (3)
of permittivity , and . Without loss of
generality we may assume . The cross section of The transverse -dependence is chosen to verify the quasi-static
the slot is uniform in and small in terms of a wavelength. The edge singularities
structure is excited by a -oriented electric dipole of the same
length of the slot width , placed at the origin of the reference
(4)
system. By invoking the equivalence principle, the slot region
is replaced by an infinitely thin perfectly conducting surface
with two unknown magnetic current distributions
above and below the ground plane, respectively. These currents where the normalization constant, , has been
have equal amplitudes and opposite signs to ensure continuity chosen in such a way that in (3) represents a voltage drop
of the tangent electric field through the slot. These magnetic between the two metallic planes at any cross section of the

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1574 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 7, JULY 2003

slot line. The function possesses a closed-form Fourier The normalized magnetic current (voltage) can thus be ex-
transform pressed as an inverse-Fourier transform of in (7)

(5)
(12)
where is the Bessel function of zero order. Denoting by
and , the Fourier transforms with respect to The complex plane for the spectrum ex-
the variable of and , respectively, the IE (1) is hibits two branch points associated to multivalued square roots
represented as occurring at , . Accordingly, two branch
cuts are defined in the plane such as on
(6a) the top Rieman sheet associated to . The integration
contour runs along the top Rieman sheet associated to both the
square roots.
where has been introduced to denote the space-convolu- In order to test the accuracy of the spectral solution in (11) a
tion integral reference solution has been obtained by a method of moments
(MoM) applied to a very long slot. The length of the slot
(6b) is adjusted to render negligible the reflection effects of the
x-attenuated current at the slot endpoints. Fig. 2(a) presents the
real and the imaginary part of the normalized magnetic current
Equation (6a) represents the continuity of the total magnetic for the case in which a uniform delta-gap electric current of
field radiated by the integral superposition of x-propagating extension and amplitude is used as excitation (the integrand
traveling line current. Equality of the integrands in the RHS and in (12) is then multiplied by ). The two media
LHS of (6a) implies the continuity of the total field associated have (silicon), and (free-space). (Because
to each traveling line current of the practical importance of this case for sub millimeter wave
applications, the numerical results will be mostly referred to
(7) such dielectric constants). The curves obtained by MoM are
almost superimposed in the drawing scale to those from the
The convolution integral in (6b) can also be rewritten in the present formulation. Excellent agreement has been found over
spectral domain as a broad frequency range; i.e., whenever , being
.
(8)
III. DISPERSION EQUATION AND LEAKY MODE
The slot dispersion equation which defines the x-propagation
where is the FT of with respect to both the constants in absence of excitation, is obtained by annulling (11)
variables x and y; i.e., denominator of (12), i.e., . This equation leads to

(13)

(9)
In (9), , and and are the free- where . The guideline for the search
space wave number, and impedance, respectively. The spectral of the solution of (13), start by the assumption of very
integration in (8) can be performed in analytical form by re- small slot width. In this case, the dispersion (13) can
sorting to the exact identity [15] be calculated by using the small argument approxima-
tion of the Bessel function ( , where
is the Euler constant.) and of the Hankel func-
tion, . With
these approximations, an in the limit for , the R.H.S. of
(14) becomes unity, thus obtaining, for

(10) (14)

which leads to which is the well known approximation associated to the av-
erage permittivity [16]. This also constitutes a good initial guess
for the numerical search of the complex solution for in-
creasing slot widths. Note that the case is actually
never obtained, since a small imaginary part of is needed to
(11)
satisfy (13). In order to find an analytical approximation which

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NETO AND MACI: GREEN’S FUNCTION FOR AN INFINITE SLOT 1575

TABLE I
VALUES OF K FOR 1
SMALL j k j AND DIFFERENT CHOICE OF THE
SQUARE ROOTS

have a physical meaning is the one with ,

and . On the
basis of (18), this solution assumes the approximate form

Fig. 2. Real and imaginary parts of the normalized magnetic current v x for () (19)
(
an infinite slot w = 0 03 )
;  printed on a ground plane between silicon
(  = 11 7)
; ( = 1)
and air  , and excited by a delta gap with dimension
t = 0 06
;  . Comparison between numerical integration of (12) and fine mesh
where For very thin slots we can use the
MoM solution applied to a very long slot.
small argument approximation of the Bessel and Hankel, thus
obtaining
is more accurate than (14), we assume a small correction of type
, and we approximate with the first two
terms of its Taylor expansion around ; thus, obtaining the ap- (20)
proximate dispersion equation ,
which yields . The deriva- This latter approximation, although very simple, has a more re-
tive of can be written after some algebraic manipulation stricted frequency range of validity than that of (19). (Note that
as the argument of the function is less than unity, that implies a
negative imaginary part of the leaky wave-number).
(15) Fig. 3 shows the real part [propagation constant, Fig. (3a)] and
imaginary part [attenuation constant, Fig. (3b)] of the complex
where leaky wave-number normalized w.r.t the free space wave
(16) number , as a function of the slot width in terms of free-space
wavelengths . The results have been obtained by the
(17) numerical solution of the dispersion (13) and compared with the
approximation (19). The lower medium is assumed to be free-
that, by substituting (17) in and using
space while three different dielectrics are considered
(17) to express , leads to
for the upper medium: rexolite , quartz
, and silicon . The real part exhibits an almost
(18) flat behavior, especially for low permittivity. The attenuation
constant increases as the width of the slot increases, as expected.
The inset of Fig. (3b) shows also the detail of the zone relevant to
where , with ; For the case (continuous line) the
and result obtained via the approximation (20) is also shown, which
. These latter parameters have been presents a reasonable agreement only in a limited range (about
expressed by a limit process because they assume different where is pertinent to the denser medium).
values in dependence of the choice of the square branches and On the contrary (20) exhibits a relatively large range of validity
on the sign of the imaginary part of . It can be seen that four .
solutions can be found for that are summarized
in Table I. The solutions for are obtained by IV. ASYMPTOTIC CURRENT CONTRIBUTIONS
changing into . The complex plane for the spectrum in
These solutions exist only for the combinations (12), depicted in Fig. 4, exhibits two square roots at ,
and , . Accordingly two branch cuts are defined in the
and . plane such that on the top
No solutions exhists for and Rieman sheet associated with . Logarithmic-type
, and branch cuts along two vertical lines are also
. As we will discuss in the next defined starting from , which are associated to the
section, among the four solutions, the unique that can Hankel functions. The log-branch cut associated to

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1576 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 7, JULY 2003

(a)
Fig. 4. Deformation of the original contour into steepest descent paths
SDP’s. “L” type branch cuts are associated to the square-root branch-points,
and vertical branch cuts to logaritmic-type branch points due to the Hankel
functions. The long dashed line correspond to path on bottom Rieman sheet
(RS) associated with both branch cuts (i.e., Im k 0 k > 0 i = 1; 2). The
short dashed line correspond to path on top RS associated with k 0 k
(i.e., Im k 0 k < 0) and on bottom RS associated with k 0 k (i.e.,
Im k 0 k > 0). This latter plane is that where the leaky wave pole
k (see (19)) is captured. The continuous line corresponds to path in the
top RS of both square roots (i.e., Im k k < 0 i = 1; 2). Varying the
slot width in free-space wavelength, the leaky wave pole moves on the locus
depicted in figure. Other poles (not depicted) are located on other combination
of Rieman sheets according to Table I, but they are never captured during the
SDP deformation.

), and on top for the log-type branch

(b)
Fig. 3. Normalized propagation constant (a) and attenuation constant (b) of
the leaky wave as a function of the slot width for different dielectric contrast;
medium 1: free-space; medium 2: silicon ( = 11:7), quartz ( = 4),
and rexolite ( = 2:54). The curves are calculated via numerical solution of
(13) and compared (dotted lines) with the approximation (19). The dotted lines
are distinguishable from the other lines only in the case of silicon. The inset
presents an expanded view of the small w = range; there the approximation
(20) is also reported.
cuts. This pole is the only one that can be captured during the
SDP deformation and therefore the only one associated to a
wave with physical meaning. This pole is also the closest one to
the original real-axis path, and therefore the one which exerts
the most significant influence on the original integration.
Via the contour deformation shown in Fig. 4, the original in-
tegral can be expressed as the sum of three contributions: the
residue of the leaky wave pole at plus the integration along
the SDP’s associated with the two branch points; i.e.,

is defined on the bottom Riemann sheet of the square-root (21)

. The integration contour of (12) runs on the real axis
where
on the top Riemann sheet of every branch cut. The integrand
presents poles located in different combinations (22)
of the Rieman sheets; their approximations and location can be
easily derived from Table I and (19). is times the residue of the integrand, and is the
To find a suitable asymptotic representation of the currents, contribution from the integration. Note that the explicit
the original real axis integration path is conveniently deformed expression of the derivative in (22) is shown in (15)–(17). We
in two distinct steepest descent paths ( ’s) through the denote “fringe current” the summation , namely
square-root branch points (Fig. 4). These ’s the difference between the total currents and the leaky
run along the branch cuts associated to the log-type branch wave currents .
points, half in the bottom and half in the top Rieman sheet of We will be satisfied here of a nonuniform asymptotic evalua-
the square roots they are associated with. (The name SDP we tion of the fringe currents, which does not account for possible
give to these contours may be not so conventional due to the vicinity of the leaky-wave pole to the SDP. This is accept-
fact that the integrand in (12) does not exhibit saddle points; able in most of practical cases, with exception for quite large
the justification of this name will be clarified after). In the slot widths (we emphasize that for the silicon case the pole
deformation of the original contour, a “leaky-wave pole” approaches for ). To evaluate the contribu-
is captured, the one with located on top Rieman tion at , we perform the -dependent changes of
sheet of cuts (i.e., with ), variable with .
on bottom Rieman sheet for the cuts of (i.e., with These variable transformation maps of the square-root branch

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NETO AND MACI: GREEN’S FUNCTION FOR AN INFINITE SLOT 1577

point onto the saddle point at , and the original that the integral in (27) is exactly equal to . From
into the real axis of the s-plane. (This also justify the name this, and calculating the exact analytical expressions of
SDP given before to the above contours). The integra- and in (26), we have
tion is eventually transformed in
(28)
where

(23)

(29)
where we have defined For the sake
of convenience, in (23), we have split the denominator
into its constituent parts depending on the two square root
singularities
(30)

(24) and ; . The

fringe currents and thus asymptotically decay as
The term at the numerator in (23) derives from the and propagate with phase velocity of the upper and
Jacobean of the transformation. Each branch-point associated lower medium, respectively. Their launching coefficients in
to the square root pertinent to the contour is then (29) and (30) exhibit an inverse proportionality to .
mapped into a saddle point at . The integrand still In the denser medium (medium 2), both and
have a logarithmic-type branch point at , due to the provide stationary phase radiation contributions, since their
Hankel function; defining the phase of in the top Rieman phase velocities are greater than the intrinsic speed of light
sheet as comprises between and , the real axis in (23) in this medium (i.e., there exist real stationary phase points
passes below the branch cut which is at . The above on the domain of the relevant radiation integral). The current
transformation, a part from being convenient to perform the radiates in medium 2 only by means of the endpoint at
exact integration numerically, is well suited for calculating the , since its phase velocity is equal to the medium 2 speed
asymptotics for large. To this end, we first perform the of light. Regarding the medium 1, the radiation integral of any
following regularization contribution does not exhibit stationary phase contributions,
so the field in medium 1 is substantially evanescent except for
(25) the end point at the source. A complete asymptotic uniform
field representation will be discussed in Part II of this paper.
which is useful for approximating the integrand function around The final asymptotic non uniform approximation of the mag-
the saddle point. Indeed, for small, netic current is
and for ; consequently, close to
, we can perform the approximation (31)

In order to check the accuracy of this approximation, Fig. 5

(26)
Using (26) and observing that the integration of the term
proportional to in the integrand does not yield contribution
because of the contour parity, we obtain
(27)
and an analogous form for . The symbol
at the lower limit of the integral is used to denote integration
below the branch cut placed on the negative real axis. Using the
mathematical identity in [17, pag 573], it can be demonstrated
shows, for , a comparison between
when calculated by numerical integration of and by the
asymptotic expression . It is seen that the asymp-
totic for the fringe current is accurate, for , where
is that associated to the average of the permittivities. Sim-
ilar results have been obtained for different values of and
dielecric contrast.
When adding to the fringe currents the leaky wave to obtain
the total currents as in (31), we observe that at a certain distance
from the source the leaky wave contribution dominates the total
field, as expected. The predominance of the leaky wave contri-
bution is more pronounced for small slot widths and for high
dielectric contrasts, due to the weaker attenuation of the leaky
wave. In the example of Fig. 6 we compare the total currents
from the numerical integration with the stand alone leaky wave

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1578 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 7, JULY 2003

(a)

Fig. 6. Real and imaginary parts of the magnetic current v (x) calculated by
the numerical integration (continuous line) and by the stand alone leaky-wave
contribution v (x) (dashed line); w = 0:03 ,  = 11; 7,  = 1.
(b) The normalization of the horizontal is given in terms of free-space wavelengths
Fig. 5. Real (a) and imaginary (b) parts of the fringe magnetic current v(x) 0 for convenience in the plots, the excitation is provided by a delta gap with
v (x) calculated by the numerical integration of v (x) (continuous line) and dimensions t = 0; 06 . At few fraction of a wavelengths the pertinent pair
by the asymptotic evaluation v (x)+v (x) (dashed line); w = 0:03 ,  = of curves superimpose.
11; 7,  = 1.

which decays exponentially for

contribution ; at a certain distance from the source, the . This leads to
current practically superimposes with (to quantify
the relative weight of the fringe currents with respect to ,
one should compare the vertical scales of Figs. 5 and 6)

V. QUASI STATIC CURRENT BEHAVIOR (35)

In contrast with the previous spatial asymptotic, we treat here where . In this form it is apparent that
the quasi static current contribution, i.e., that for observation is the superposition of two contributions, associated to the two
points very close to the source. This contribution is associated different dielectric half-spaces, whose exact closed form space
by the asymptotic part of the spectrum of the magnetic current domain expression can be obtained by (34)
(i.e., large ). In order to extract the information on this con-
tribution it is useful to represent the magnetic currents as

(32) (36)

In (36) is the first-order Hankel function of the second

where kind and and denote the first ad the second term of
the summation, respectively. The quasi static term dom-
(33)
inates the imaginary part of the total field in the vicinity to the
source; this “vicinity” is implied not only by the wavelength but
also by the strip width; indeed, the spectrum matches
(34) the spectrum only for
which corresponds in the space domain to small distances from
the source in terms of both wavelengths and slot widths. Never-
The function is the limit of for large theless, (36) reproduces the correct singularity at the origin of
; although different mathematical functions can be ex- the total currents. This singularity is of type; indeed, al-
tracted which lead to the same asymptotic limit for large, though both and behave like for small x,
a convenient choice is the one which leads a closed form both the order and cancel in the limit for vanishing
expression. This can be obtained from (11) first by replacing , thus obtaining the log-type singularity
the Bessel and Hankel functions by their large argument
(37)
approximation, thereby forcing to zero the outcoming term

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NETO AND MACI: GREEN’S FUNCTION FOR AN INFINITE SLOT 1579

It is also worth noting that (36) is rigorously equal to the elec-

tric field Green’s function of a parallel plate wave guide with
perfect electric walls along , illuminated by the same
electric dipole and filled by two semi-infinite dielectric sources
for and .

VI. -GAP EXCITATION

For sub-mm wave receiving antennas coupled to hot electron
bolometers (HEBs), it is of particular importance the analysis of
the input impedance of slots fed by very small -gap excitations.
For this reason, we discuss here a convenient approximation for
the magnetic current associated to a finite dimension electric
current excitation . To this end we assume
for and zero elsewhere; the corresponding
magnetic current will be denoted by where a second
Fig. 7. Magnetic current voltage distribution for different delta gap (t) as a
argument has been added to distinguish from the case of the function of the distance from the slot center (x = 0) expressed in free space
elementary dipole excitation. For practical HEB applications, wavelength. Imaginary parts of v (x; t) and v (x; t). Note that the imaginary
is very small in terms of free-space wavelength, typically ranging part of (v (x; t) + r (x; t)) is almost uniform over a large gap variation.

from to [2], [4]. The magnetic currents

may be obtained via convolution integral between and
, that corresponds in the spectral domain to a multiplication
by . In order to emphasize the current behavior at
the gap, which is associated to the input impedance, we use (43)
the same representation as that in (32)–(34), thus leading to
where

(44)
(38) (45)
where
and . The analytical details for the derivation
of (45) are not presented here, but can be available from the
authors. The above approximation is valid for and
committing less then 1% error. This current can be used
(39) to obtain a closed form approximation for the reactive part of
the slot input impedance; this will be the topic of a dedicated
(40) future paper. Fig. 8 shows the imaginary part of for
two different gap’s ( and ), and rela-
This representation shows interesting properties with respect tive to the same slot of Fig. 8. The dashed lines correspond to
to the -dependence: is the prominent term in the the definition in (40) while the continuous lines corresponds to
gap region and there exhibits a strong dependence from , the approximation in (41). It is apparent that for thin gap’s the
while the remainder is almost independent from . approximation (41) provide a good representation of the imag-
Fig. 7 presents the imaginary part of both the contributions inary part of the quasi static component of the current Fig. 9
of the currents, for ranging from and and shows the total voltages across the same slot, when evaluated
. It is apparent that the imaginary part of the total via MoM and via (38). Two delta gaps are considered, with
magnetic current is dominated by , which presents and , respectively. From comparison
a highly peaked behavior in the gap region. In contrast, the with Fig. 8, it is apparent that in the case the imaginary part of
imaginary part of the remainder is flat in the gap region the total impedance is dominated by . The MoM code
and insensitive to . The real part of all the contributions (not uses PWS basis functions and a Galerking testing scheme. Note
shown in the figure) are weakly dependent on and slowly that the values at the origin can be red directly in terms of input
varying in the gap region. impedance since a unit current has been assumed for excitation.
A closed form approximation of . For small may
be obtained by a space convolution of (36) with the rect function
; this yields VII. CONCLUSION
(41) An analytic expression has been derived for the Green’s
function of an infinite slot printed on a ground plane between
two homogeneous half-spaces. The method employed in the
derivation relies on the assumption of functional separability
(42) of the magnetic current on the longitudinal and transverse spa-

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1580
Fig. 8. Quasi static magnetic current voltage distribution for different delta
gap (t =  =100 and t =  =30 with w = 0:03 , and  = 11:7.) as
a function of the distance from the slot center (x = 0) expressed in free space
wavelength. Imaginary parts of v (x; t) calculated by numerical evaluation of
(43) (continuous line) and with the approximation in (44)–(48).
Fig. 9. Real and imaginary parts of v (x; t) calculated via MoM and as in (40),
as a function of the distance from the slot center (x = 0) expressed in free
space wavelengths. Results pertinent to two different delta gaps (t =  =100,
t =  =30) with w = 0:03 , and  = 11:7.
tial variables. The longitudinal wavenumber spectrum of the
magnetic currents exhibits a pole, whose residue represents
the leaky wave excited in the slot by the source dipole. This
leaky wave constitutes the leading contribution at a distance
from the source comparable with the effective wavelength.
A further “fringe” current contribution is obtained from the
asymptotic treatment of the branch cut integration. This contri-
bution exhibits a launching coefficient inversely proportional
to the logarithm of the slot width, and decay asymptotically
as . The fringe current can be split in two wave contribu-
tions, propagating with the intrinsic phase velocity of the two
surrounding media. We note that the same kind of decay for
the fringe wave was recently found in [18] for the analysis of
the Green’s function of a microstrip. In that case, additional
fringe contribution have been also detected, which exhibits an
asymptotic decay of order and the phase velocity of the
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL. 51, NO. 7, JULY 2003
dominant slab guided mode (surface wave); this latter wave
type is not expected in our case, where the environment does
not support, in absence of losses, guided mode propagation.
In Part II of this paper [1], the magnetic current derived here
will be used to find the integral form and the relevant uniform
asymptotic field in every observation point of the space.
When the observation point is close to the source, a con-
venient field representation is obtained by extracting from the
current spectrum the asymptotic limit for large. The result
of this latter representation is useful to obtain a closed form
approximation for the quasi static field and relevant source
reactive energy associated to a delta-gap excited slot antenna.
REFERENCES
[1] S. Maci and A. Neto, “Green’s function of an infinite slot printed
between two homogeneous dielectrics—Part II: Uniform asymptotic
solution,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. 51, to be published.
[2] P. Focardi, A. Neto, and W. McGrath, “Coplanar waveguide based THz
hot-electron bolometer mixer: improved embedding circuit description,”
IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., to be published.
[3] A. Neto, S. Maci, and P. J. I. de Maagt, “Reflections inside an elliptical
dielectric lens antenna,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., vol. 145, no. 3, June
1998.
[4] M. Van der Vorst, P. J. I. de Maagt, A. Neto, A. Reynolds, W. Luinge, R.
Heres, and M. Herben, “Effect of the internal reflections on the radia-
tion properties and input impedance of integrated lens antennas: com-
parison between theory and measurements,” IEEE Trans. Microwave
Theory Tech., vol. 49, pp. 1118–1125, June 2001.
[5] A. Neto, P. J. De Maagt, and S. Maci, “Optimized basis functions for
slot antennas excited by coplanar waveguides,” IEEE Trans. Antennas
Propagat., vol. 51, pp. 1637–1645, July 2003.
[6] K. Y. Kabalan, R. F. Harrington, H. A. Auda, and J. R. Mautz, “Char-
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[10] P. S. Kildal, S. Rengarajan, and A. Moldsvor, “Analysis of nearly
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[12] C. Di Nallo, F. Mesa, and D. R. Jackson, “Excitation of leaky modes on
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and space-wave leaky-mode excitation on microstrip lines,” IEEE Trans.
Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 47, pp. 207–215, Feb. 1999.
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[15] M. Abramowitz and I. E. Stegun, “Handbook of mathematical func-
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July 8–13, 2001, p. 266.
NETO AND MACI: GREEN’S FUNCTION FOR AN INFINITE SLOT
Andrea Neto (M’99) was born in Naples, Italy, in 1968. He received the M.S.
degree (with honors) in electronic engineering from the University of Florence,
Italy, in 1994 and the Ph.D. degree in methods for the analysis of large arrays
from the University of Siena, Italy, in 1999.
Part of his studies were developed at the European Space Agency Research
and Technology Center, Noordwijk, the Netherlands, where he worked in the
Antenna Section. From 2000 to 2001, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. In particular, he was working for
the Sub-mm Wave Advanced Technology Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena. Currently, he is with the Physics and Electronics Laboratory, TNO,
Den Haag, the Netherlands. His research is focused on analytical and numerical
methods in electromagnetics.
Authorized
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1581
Stefano Maci (M’92–SM’99) was born in Rome, Italy, in 1961. He received
the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering from the University of Florence, Flo-
rence, Italy, in 1987.
From 1990 to 1998, he was with the Department of Electronic Engineering,
University of Florence, as an Assistant Professor. In 1998, he was appointed
Associate Professor of Electromagnetism at the University of Siena, Siena,
Italy. During 1997, he was an invited Professor at the Technical University of
Denmark, Copenhagen. His research interests are focused on electromagnetic
theory, mainly concerning high- and low-frequency methods for antennas
and electromagnetic scattering. Since 1996, he has been responsible for the
University of Siena’s projects with the European Space Agency and with other
european industries. He is principal author or co-author of approximately 60
articles in international journals and more than 150 papers in proceedings of
international conferences.
Dr. Maci received the National Young Scientists “Francini” Award for
the Laurea thesis in 1987 and the “Barzilai” Prize for the best paper at the
National Italian Congress of Electromagnetism (XI RiNEm) in 1996. He
was an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC
COMPATIBILITY, from 1998 to 2001.