Leaky-wave radiation from 2-D dielectric lattices excited by an embedded electric line source

This article presents an analytical and numerical investigation of the radiation features of an interesting class of electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures excited by an electric line source. The radiation from 2-D lattices made with lossless dielectric cylinders, typically optimized by using the Bloch analysis of the corresponding 2-D photonic crystals, is originally investigated in terms of leaky waves. A thorough modal analysis of open waveguides, composed of a finite number of periodic chains of circular dielectric rods, is presented, which shows a multiplicity of bound and leaky modes. Two radiation windows are identified and the relevant directive features are described in terms of properly excited dominant leaky modes. The possible excitation of higher order leaky modes and guided modes has been carefully considered, by also capturing the relevant residue contributions in a nonspectral representation of the excited fields. The final results on radiated fields by realistic truncated structures, obtained by ad hoc software as well as full-wave EM simulators, are in excellent agreement with those predicted by the proposed leaky-wave approach.