560
ELECTROMAGNETIC BAND-GAP STRUCTURES:
CLASSIFICATION, CHARACTERIZATION, AND APPLICATIONS
Y Rahmat-Samii and H Mosallaei
University of California at Los Angeles, U. S. A.
Periodic structures are abundant in nature and they have
fascinated artists and scientists alike. When they interact
with electromagnetic waves amazing features result. In
particular, characteristics such as frequency stop-bands,
pass-bands and band-gaps could be identified. Surveying
the literature, one observes that various terminology have
been used depending on the domain of the applications.
These applications are seen in filter designs, gratings,
frequency selective surfaces (FSS), photonic crystals and
band-gaps (PBG), etc. We classify them under the broad
terminology of "Electromagnetic Band-gaps (EBG)".
Generally speaking, EBG structures are 3-D periodic
objects that prevent the propagation of the
electromagnetic waves in a specified band of frequency
for all angles and for all polarization states. However, in
practice, it is very hard to obtain such complete band-gap
structures and partial band-gaps are achieved. For
example, filters typically cover the scalar situation and
single angle of amval. FSS typically cover limited angles
of arrival and respond differently to polarization states.
PBG typically cover in-plane angles of amval and also
sensitive to the polarization states. FSS terminology has
been widely used in the microwave community while
PBG terminology has been widely applied in the optical
community. The focus of this paper is to present a
powerful computational engine utilizing Finite Difference
Time Domain (FDTD) technique integrated with the
Prony method to analyze and understand the unique
propagation characteristics of different classes of
complex EBG structures such as, (a) FSS structures, (b)
PBG crystals, (c) smart surfaces for communication
antenna applications, (d) surfaces with perfectly
magnetic conducting properties (PMC), (e) creation of
materials with negative permittivity and negative
permeability, ( f ) surfaces with reduced edge diffraction
effects, and (g) the notion of equivalent media. The
performance of two types of the EBG structures namely,
single and multi-layered tripod FSS, and rectangular,
triangular and woodpile PBG crystals is detailed. Some of
the potential applications of these structures are
highlighted.
CHARACTERIZATION OF EBG STRUCTURES
To analyze and present unique characteristics of the
complex electromagnetic band-gap structures the FDTD
technique with Periodic Boundary Conditioflerfectly
Matched Layer (PBCPML) is developed. The split-field
approach described in Taflove (l), is incorporated to
discretize the Floquet transformed Maxwell's equations.
Taking advantage of the broadband analysis of the
17th lntemational Conference on Antennas and Propagation, 17-20April 2001, Conference Publication No. 480 0 IEE 2001
FDTD approach provides a great efficiency and
accuracy when the structure is characterized to
demonstrate its frequency response. The Prony's
extrapolation scheme is also incorporated to increase the
efficiency of the computational technique. The -main
parts of this engine are briefed in Fig. 1.
The developed FDTDRrony technique is successfully
applied to the characterization of different types of
complex periodic EBG structures illustrated in Fig. 2. In
this paper, the electromagnetic performances of the tripod
FSS and PBG crystals are detailed.
TRIPOD FSS
The focus of this section is to present the characteristics
of the electromagnetic band-gap multi-layered tripod
FSS (Barlevy and Rahmat-Samii (2)). Fig. 3(a) depicts
the geometry of a single layer tripod FSS. The
FDTDProny technique is applied to analyze the
structure, and the results for the normal incidence ( Ez )
reflected power is obtained in Fig. 3(b). As observed,
there is a resonance frequency around the
f, = 145GHz.
The location of the resonance frequency can be
controlled using a 2-layer tripod FSS, as displayed in
Fig. 4(a). The second layer is rotated 180' with respect
to the first layer, and is shifted along the z-axis in such a
way that all three legs of each tripod overlap a leg of a
tripod in the first layer. The overlap region forms a
capacitor, which is used to !me the frequency for 100%
reflection. The reflected power of the normal incident
plane wave is presented in Fig. 4(b). As obtained,
compared to the 1-layer tripod the resonance frequency
is shifted down.
To broaden the 100% reflection bandwidth, a 4-layer
tripod FSS is introduced in Fig. 5(a). The structure is a
composition of two sets of the FSS shown in Fig. 4(a).
The geometry has two degrees of freedom, d and D .
The capacitance governed by the small distance d
controls the lower edge of the rejection band, where the
large inter-capacitor spacing D controls the upper edge
of the band. The reflected power for the normal and 30'
oblique incidence (8'= 90',$' = 150') for both TE
( E , ) and TM ( Hz) cases is presented in Fig. 5(b). As
observed, by increasing the bandwidth of the 100%
reflection, an EBG structure utilizing the multiple
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coupled tripod arrays is designed. Notice that for the
angles near to the grazing, the TM waves are almost
normal to surface of tripods and the FSS cannot reject
them. Utilizing the interconnecting vias between tripods
may help to reject the normal components and design a
complete band-gap structure as obtained by Barlevy and
Rahmat-S amii (2).
PBG CRYSTALS
The focus of this section is to present the characteristics
of the photonic band-gap crystals, which are another class
of EBG structures. To analyze the structure the
FDTDProny technique is applied to obtain the reflection
coefficient of the plane wave incident on the band-gap
structure. Compared to the dispersion diagram method,
which is usually applied to analyze these structures, the
present technique appears to have two potential
advantages:
Obtaining reflection and transmission coefficients
outside the band-gap regime,
Presenting phase and polarization information of
the scattered fields.
The performance of a 5-layer 2-D rectangular PBG
structure of air holes drilled in the dielectric material for
both normal and oblique incidence plane waves is
determined in Fig. 6. As illustrated, there is a complete
band-gap region for the z-polarized (TE) waves for the
normalized frequencies 0.21 5 a/& I0.28. The
location of the band-gap region has an excellent
agreement with the data presented in JoaMopoulos et al
(3) based on the dispersion diagram.
The PBG structure can be also designed to generate a TM
band-gap region using a triangular array of holes (5-layer)
in the dielectric material, as depicted in Fig. 7. In this
case, the electric field is polarized in the plane normal to
the axis of holes, and as observed there is a TM band-gap
region ' ' in the normalized frequency range
0.20 I ./A, 50.25.
The novel woodpile PBG structure proposed by Ho et a1
(4) has the potential to generate a complete band-gap
region for all angles of incidence and for all polarizations.
The geometry of a 2-layer woodpile PBG is shown in Fig.
8(a). The symmetric arrangement of the structure allows
one to forbid almost all the wave vectors. The reflection
coefficient for the normal, 30' obliqueiTE, and arbitrary
incident wave 8 ' = 40" ,$' = 150" with 45" polarization
angle (between the electric field and reference direction
k ' x i ) is presented in Fig. 8(b). As demonstrated, the
structure is able to generate an almost complete band-
gap region. The reflected phase on the surface of the
structure for 30" oblique wave is shown in Fig. 8(c). It is
observed that, within the gap region the phase has an
almost linear frequency variation. Thus, inside the band-
gap, the woodpile can be modeled as a Perfect Electric
Conductor(PEC) where the location of the PEC is
variable instead to be fixed at the front surface of PBG.
Potential Applications of PBG
In this section, the novel characteristics of the PBG
structures are incorporated into some potential
applications such as nanocavities, waveguides, and patch
antennas, as illustrated in Fig. 9.
High Q nanocavity lasers. To design a high Q cavity
laser a finite thickness 2-D PBG structure is used to
localize the electromagnetic waves inside a defect
region in three directions, based on the PBG gapltotal
internal reflections. The defect-excited mode (inside the
gap region) is localized in the transverse plane utilizing
the PBG crystal. In the vertical direction, the dielectric
contrast between the impurity and outside air region
generates the total internal reflections as it traps the
waves in this direction.
Guiding waves in sharp bends. Another application of
the PBG is for guiding EM waves in sharp bends. To
end this, an array of the PBG holes in the guiding
direction is removed. The guiding modes with their
frequencies within the gap-region are confined through
the channel, and they cannot be scattered through the
PBG, even at the tight corners. It has been shown that
by shaping the bend region improved coupling of the
EM waves at sharp comers can be obtained.
Miniaturized microstrip patch antennas. To present a
miniaturized patch antenna, the' PBG is used as the
substrate surrounding the highhhick dielectric material
beneath the patch to suppress the surface waves. It is
demonstrated that, although the PBG cannot generafe a
complete surface wave band-gap, but still it has the
potential to suppress the surface waves, and
significantly improve the radiation performance of the
antenna.
COMMNETS
Due to the page limitations no attempt was made to
incorporate a complete list of original and pertinent
references. There are many special issues and journal
articles written in this area and the reader can easily
access them through electronic media. Also during the
presentation additional results, areas of applications and
future advances will be highlighted.
REFERENCES
1. Taflove, A., 1998, "Advances in Computational
Electrodynamics ", Artech House, MA, U.S.A.
2. Barlevy, A., S., and Rahmat-Samii, Y . , 2000, to be
published in IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat.
3. Joannopoulos, J. D., Meade, R. D., and Winn, J. N.,
1995, "Photonic Crystals", Princeton U. Press, New
Jersey, U.S.A.
4.Ho, K. M., Chan, C. T., Soukoulis, C. M., Biswas, R.,
and Sigalas, M., 1994, Solid State Commun..89,413-
416.
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Fig. 1 : Schematic of the FDTDProny computational technique.

Multi-Layer Dielectric Structures Double Concentric Square Loop FSS High Q Dipole FSS Crossed Dipole FSS

Dichroic Plate FSS Sierpinski Fractal FSS Composite Periodic Material with Multi-Layer Tripod FSS
Negative E & p

Rectangular PBG Triangular PBG Woodpile PBG Mushroom PBG

Fig. 2: Different classes of EBG structures for various applications.

 563

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AAA
A A
AAA,
AA&
A x !aL*
TzF ................................
y,

TI~J
24W flareangle

..... ............. !
Ll= 0.48"
T, =IAOmm,T =2.44mm

(a) @)

Fig. 3: 1-Layer tripod FSS, (a) Periodic structure, (b) Normal incident reflected power.

Tv = 1.40 mm, Tz= 2.44 mm

(a) @)

Fig. 4: 2-Layer tripod FSS, (a) Periodic structure, (b) Normal incident reflected power.

W = 0.40 mm
d=20jun I
D=lmm
Ty= 1.40 mm, T,= 2.44 mm
I
.(a) @)
Fig.5: 4-Layer tripod FSS, (a) Periodic structure, (b) Normal and oblique (TE/TM) incidence reflected power.
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-5nog.o. 0.lO 0-5 0.20 0.25 0.20 0.35 0.w 0.45 0.50

(a) ib">
Fig.6: 5-Layer rectangular PBG, (a) Periodic structure, (b) Normal and oblique incidence reflection coefficient.

10 0

00

-10 0

i -200

! -30 0

-.o 0

-50 0
000 005 010 015 020 02s 030

(a) ib7
Fig.7: 5-Layer triangular PBG, (a) Periodic structure, (b) Normal and oblique incidence reflection coefficient.

T
(a) (b) (c)
Fig.8: 2-Layer woodpile PBG, (a) Periodic structure, (b) Normal and oblique incidence reflection coefficient,
(c) Reflection phase for the 30' /TE incidence wave.

(a) (b) (c)

Fig.9: Potential applications of the.PBG structures in (a) High Q nanocavity lasers, (b) Guiding the EM waves in
sharp bends, and (c) Miniaturized microstrip patch antennas.