Flat corrugated and bull’s-eye antennas

Abstract

This chapter is focused on a family of antennas recently proposed, whose common denominator is that they consist in a flat metallic plane with a central narrow aperture surrounded by corrugations. This new family of antennas has occupied a very important place in the development of communication technologies and solutions for several communication applications since, compared to higher volume structures, as horn or parabolic antennas, they present equal or even higher radiation characteristics. An introduction, which also serves as an historical overview, is presented in the first place, emphasizing the relation with both extraordinary transmission structures demonstrated initially at optical wavelengths as well as with leaky-wave antennas, developed mainly in microwaves. Afterwards, the physical mechanism for radiation and the main guidelines for the design of these antennas are discussed. Next, an overview of some of the most appealing designs and results related with this technology is presented, putting special emphasis in terahertz-band applications. Finally, tips on foreseen future trends are summarized to conclude the chapter.