Focusing Microwaves by a Periodic Arrangement

of Conducting Wires
Joaquim J. Barroso1, Antônio Tomaz2, and Ugur C. Hasar3
1
National Institute for Space Research (INPE), São José dos Campos, SP, Brasil
2
Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA), São José dos Campos, SP, Brasil
3
University of Gaziantep, Gaziantep 27310, Turkey

Abstract — Microwave focusing in the 8-12 GHz frequency

range to produce localized energy concentration is achieved by
using a periodic arrangement of thin conducting wires. The
wire medium is implemented with 0.5-mm-diameter wires
symmetrically arranged in a square lattice with spacing
constant of 10.0 mm. It is shown that the amplitude of the
electric field in the central spot of the focused beam is 2.7 times
higher than the corresponding amplitude of input plane wave.

Keywords – wire medium; microwave focusing; artificial

dielectric; numerical simulation.

I. INTRODUCTION
As a versatile electroheat method, microwave heating
offers advantages over conventional heating because energy
is directly transferred into the absorbing material without
thermal conductivity delay and without passing through an
interface [1, 2]. In this regard, the present paper
demonstrates the ability of a wire medium to focus
microwave radiation in the 8-12 GHz frequency range. Such
a structure allows the realization of a refracting medium
with refractive index less than unity, thus being referred to
as a phase-advance dielectric. The idea that near-zero
refractive index media could be artificially realized from
metals was originated by Koch in 1948 [3], even before the
delay dielectrics [4]. The concept of artificial dielectric has
later expanded on by pioneering researchers, with most of
the work occurring in the 1950s [5−7]. Renewed interest in
wire media was sparked with the advent of metamaterials in
the 2000s, leading to a range of new applications such as
subwavelength imaging in the visible spectrum, transport of
near-field images, and directive emission [8− 11].
Fig. 1. Wire medium structure.
If the wire radius and the periodic distance are very small
in comparison with the wavelength inside the structure and
for the case of plane-wave incidence with the electric field
parallel to the wires, the wire medium can be described as an
artificial homogeneous dielectric with permittivity (relative
to vacuum) given by [9]
1
(1)
where εh is the permittivity of the host medium, f the
frequency of the incident wave, and fc the equivalent cutoff
frequency, which is determined by calculating the local field
that excites each wire and then summing up all the fields
generated by the wires in the infinite periodic array [11]

II. WIRE MEDIUM STRUCTURE 2 0.5275

A metamaterial wire medium can be designed by analytical
(2)
models supported by full-wave electromagnetic simulations
to meet specific requirements. In our study, the wire medium
The wire medium is envisaged to operate in the X-band
consists of thin metallic wires of diameter d and arranged on
(8.2−12.4 GHz), and for achieving optimum frequency
a square lattice of a periodic spacing a as shown in Fig. 1.
response the geometrical parameters should be properly
chosen by taking into account commercially available
diameters for the metallic wire. The lattice constant and the
wire diameter were chosen as a = 10.0 mm d = 0.5 mm,
yielding from (2) a cutoff frequency of 7.7 GHz.
The analytical model was verified through electromagnetic
full-wave simulations by using the CST MWS software [12]

978-1-4673-9492-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

to ascertain the behavior of the artificial dielectric formed by corresponds to the plasma cutoff frequency, which explicitly
a periodic array of metallic wires. As displayed in Fig. 2(a), appears in (1) of the dispersive model. Point B indicates the
the simulated structure is composed of five 0.5-mm- Bragg frequency, namely, /2 , or equivalently,
diameter wires evenly spaced at 10.0 mm. 15/ , which gives 15 GHz for d= 1.0 cm.
This is a special frequency at which half the wavelength is
equal to the periodic distance, thus implying that the guided
wavelength is just the free-space wavelength. Since
, where n is the refractive index and and the
guided and free-space wavenumbers, respectively, we see
that B is nearly close to 1.0. Moreover, rewriting this
relation by setting π/ yields /2 . Plotted in
Fig. 3, this relation defines two regimes: in the first, to the
left of the curve in which λ 2 , the periodic structure can
be considered as a homogeneous and refractive medium,
whereas in the second regime, λ 2 , diffractive effects
dominate.
1,5

B
1,0
(b)

Refractive Index
0
Magnitude of S parameters (dB)

0,5 Retrieved
-20 Eq. (1)

0,0 P
-40
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
S11
S21 Frequency (GHz)
-60
Fig. 3. Retrieved real part of the refractive index, n, and analytical curve
6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 calculated from (1). The dashed blue curve corresponds to /2 .
Frequency (GHz)

III. RESULTS
Fig. 2. (a) Simulation setup of the periodic array of five wires and (b)
magnitude of scattering S parameters S11 and S21. The wire medium is implemented with 0.5-mm-diameter
metallic wires symmetrically arranged in a square lattice
(spacing constant of 10.0 mm) to build a rectangular
In the simulations, electric and magnetic boundary parallelepiped 17-wire long and 15-wire wide; then a square
conditions were applied on the walls perpendicular and of 5x5 wires is removed from the downstream edge to form
parallel to the wires, respectively, and two open ports were a reentrant slab symmetric along its length, as shown in Fig.
used to simulate the scattering S- parameter response to a 4. By using the finite-integration-technique software CST
normally incident plane wave with the electric field MWS [12], full-wave electromagnetic simulation is carried
polarized along the wires. Fig. 2(b) shows the magnitude of out on the rectangular bounding box. The upstream red
simulated scattering parameters S11 and S21 of the periodic colored end face in Fig. 4, is used as an input port from
structure. In addition to a transmission band starting at about which a normally incident plane wave is launched into the
7.0 GHz and extending up to 14.0 GHz, four resonance dips medium with the electric field polarized along the wires.
are noticed. Such resonances are due to the inductive
coupling of the wires in the periodic structure, whereby N
elements give rise to N-1 coupled resonances. Beyond the
pass band, there is the Bragg band gap extending up to 18.5
GHz.
From simulated scattering parameters [10], the retrieved
refractive index is shown in Fig. 3 where we see that the
effective index of refraction for the wire medium so
designed by considering air as the host medium has an
average value of 0.62 over the X-band. Point P at 7.76 GHz Fig. 4. A perspective view of the wire medium.
 The simulated return loss (S11 scatterring parameter) is
shown in Fig. 5, where 16 sharp dips appeear in the first pass
band. Such peaks are related to the 16 ressonant eigenmodes
supported by the periodic medium thus coonstructed with 17
rows. In the second pass band, above the band
b gap (λ < 2d,
15.0 GHz<f<18.5 GHz), the wire mediuum behaves as a
photonic crystal, where diffraction and scattering
phenomena dominate, so that the periodicc structure cannot
be characterized by an effective refractive index.

1,0

0,8
S11 magnitude

0,6

0,4

0,2 Fig. 6. Top view of the electric-field paattern at (a) 9.77 GHz and (b) 8.49
D1 D GHz. Below, the corresponding wire arrrangement.
2
0,0
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Frequency [GHz]

Fig. 5. The return loss (scattering S11 parameter) of the

t wire medium. Dips
D1 and D2 correspond to 8.49 GHz and 9.77 GHz.

On the other hand, in the first passbaand (λ > 2d, 7.7

GHz<f<15.0 GHz), the propagating fieldss see the structure
as a homogeneous and refractive medium m. In fact, at 9.77
GHz we see in Fig. 6 that the parallel wavefronts
w of the
input plane wave converge to a focal line l after passing
through the reentrant region in the wirre medium. Other
frequencies corresponding to the resonannce dips in Fig. 5
give similar electric-field patterns. Moreovver, the resonance
frequency can be tuned by removing or addding extra rows of Fig. 7. In the upper panel, the electric--field pattern at 8.45 GHz. Below, the
corresponding wire arrangement.
wires. For instance, by adding two short rows
r of five wires
on the leading edges of the structure the dip
d at 8.49 GHz in To quantify the degree of foccusing, the magnitude of the
Fig. 5 shifts down to 8.45 GHz. In the t corresponding electric field along the middle line of the structure in Fig. 4
electric-field pattern shown in Fig. 7, we see that the is shown in Fig. 8. Obtained at 206.7 mm in the central
incoming plane wave is focused on a circular
c spot, thus region of the focal spot, the highest amplitude is 1121.0
demonstrating the focusing action of thhe designed wire V/m, a value 2.7 times higheer than the amplitude of the
medium. By reciprocity, a source line pllaced in the focal incoming plane wave. It is seenn that the structure behaves as
spot would create an outgoing plane wave w propagating an open resonator continuallyy driven by the input wave,
outward through the wire medium. whereby the stored energy setttles down in a standing-wave
pattern confined in the wire meedium.
 1200
1000
Electric-field amplitude [V/m]
800
600
400
200
0
0 50 100 150 200 250
Distance [mm]
Fig. 8. Magnitude of the electric field scanned along the middle line of the
reentrant structure (17 rows) in Fig. 6.
IV. DISCUSSION
As a descriptor of the electromagnetic response of a
material, the refractive index, n, relates to the relative values
of the electrical permittivity, ε, and magnetic permeability μ,
by n = με . These two parameters quantify the degree of
the responses of the characteristic motions of the electrons
in the metallic wires. The permeability quantifies how much
the electrons respond to the magnetic field, while ε describes
the electrons´ degree of response to the electric field
component of the driving field. Since the incoming electric
field is polarized parallel to the thin wires, the
accompanying magnetic is practically undisturbed, and thus
μ ≈ 1 . On the other hand, in the 8-12 GHz range, which is
above the plasmonic frequency of the free electrons inside
the wires, the electrons resist the push of the electric force
and move in the opposite direction of the electric field, such
that the motion of the electrons goes out of phase with
respect to the oscillating electric field, thus yielding ε < 1 .
Therefore the resultant electromagnetic response of the wire
medium produces n < 1 , meaning that the structure is a
phase-advance medium, in which the wave phase velocity is
greater than that in free space. This heuristic discussion is
pictured is Fig. 9. The incoming phase front AD upon
reaching the reentrant side of the wire structure is separated
in three parts, with the central segment BC moving more
slowly than the segments AB and CD which propagate
faster across the wires. The net lens effect is seen by the
three separated branches which form, albeit segmented, a
concave cylindrical surface.
Fig. 9. Wave front transformation in the wire medium.
V. CONCLUSIONS
With the electric field of the impinging wave being
polarized along the metallic wires there is no charge
300 350
accumulation on the wires, implying that spatial dispersion
effects are negligible and therefore a local model can be
used for describing the refractive properties of the medium.
The fundamental mechanism underlying the interaction of
the wires with the electromagnetic wave is that the electrons
moving in the metallic wire uses up some energy of the
wave, thus affecting how the wave propagates across the
wires. Because the lattice constant of the periodic structure
is significantly smaller than the usable wavelength, the wire
medium discussed here is regarded as large-scale model of a
homogeneous dielectric slab, which acts as phase front
transformer by converting an incoming plane wave into a
cylindrical wave, and also by redirecting the incoming
energy toward a focal spot. The results demonstrate the
ability of the wire medium in controlling plane-wave phase
fronts as desired. Regarding its implementation as a
microwave applicator, the structure offers manufacturing
flexibility to specified variations in the refractive index by
easily altering the geometric parameters and dimensions of
the periodic structure.
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