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Rectangular Waveguide Modes

Rectangular Waveguide Modes 1) Rectangular metal waveguides are commonly used to guide electromagnetic waves and have cross-sections well suited for exploring three-dimensional fields. 2) Waves in rectangular waveguides can be classified as transverse magnetic (TM) or transverse electric (TE) based on whether the electric or magnetic field is transverse to the propagation direction. 3) Maxwell's equations are used to derive Helmholtz equations for the axial electric and magnetic fields of TM and TE modes in terms of the wave number and geometry. Boundary conditions require the fields to be zero on conducting walls.

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236 views6 pages

Rectangular Waveguide Modes

Rectangular Waveguide Modes 1) Rectangular metal waveguides are commonly used to guide electromagnetic waves and have cross-sections well suited for exploring three-dimensional fields. 2) Waves in rectangular waveguides can be classified as transverse magnetic (TM) or transverse electric (TE) based on whether the electric or magnetic field is transverse to the propagation direction. 3) Maxwell's equations are used to derive Helmholtz equations for the axial electric and magnetic fields of TM and TE modes in terms of the wave number and geometry. Boundary conditions require the fields to be zero on conducting walls.

Uploaded by

Chandu Candy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Rectangular Waveguide Modes

Metal pipe waveguides are often used to guide electromagnetic waves. The most
common waveguides have rectangular cross-sections and so are well suited for the
exploration of electrodynamic fields that depend on three dimensions. Although we
confine ourselves to a rectangular cross-section and hence Cartesian coordinates, the
classification of waveguide modes and the general approach used here are equally
applicable to other geometries, for example to waveguides of circular cross-section.

Rectangular waveguide.

We found it convenient to classify two-dimensional fields as transverse magnetic (TM)


or transverse electric (TE) according to whether E or H was transverse to the direction
of propagation (or decay). Here, where we deal with three-dimensional fields, it will be
convenient to classify fields according to whether they have E or H transverse to the
axial direction of the guide. This classification is used regardless of the cross-sectional
geometry of the pipe. We choose again the y coordinate as the axis of the guide, as
shown in Fig. If we focus on solutions to Maxwell's equations taking the form

then all of the other complex amplitude field components can be written in terms of the
complex amplitudes of these axial fields, Hy and Ey. This can be seen from substituting
fields having the form of (1) and (2) into the transverse components of Ampère's law,
(12.0.8),
and into the transverse components of Faraday's law,

If we take  y and  y as specified, (3) and (6) constitute two algebraic equations in the
unknowns  x and  z. Thus, they can be solved for these components. Similarly,  x and 
z follow from (4) and (5).

We can use the y components of the laws of Ampère and Faraday together with Gauss'
law and the divergence law for H to show that the axial complex amplitudes  y and 
y satisfy the two-dimensional Helmholtz equations.

TM Modes (Hy = 0):

where

and
TE Modes (Ey = 0):

where

These relations also follow from substitution of (1) and (2) into the y components of
(13.0.2) and (13.0.1).

The solutions to (11) and (12) must satisfy boundary conditions on the perfectly
conducting walls. Because Ey is parallel to the perfectly conducting walls, it must be
zero there.

TM Modes:

The boundary condition on Hy follows from (9) and (10), which express  x and  z in
terms of  y. On the walls at x = 0 and x = a,  z = 0. On the walls at z = 0, z = w,  x = 0.
Therefore, from (9) and (10) we obtain

TE Modes:

The derivative of  y with respect to a coordinate perpendicular to the boundary must be
zero.

The solution to the Helmholtz equation, (11) or (12), follows a pattern that is familiar
from that used for Laplace's equation in Sec. 5.4. Either of the complex amplitudes
representing the axial fields is represented by a product solution.

Substitution into (11) or (12) and separation of variables then gives


where

Solutions that satisfy the TM boundary conditions, (13), are then

TM Modes:

so that

When either m or n is zero, the field is zero, and thus m and n must be equal to an integer
equal to or greater than one. For a given frequency   and mode number (m, n), the wave
number ky is found by using (19) in the definition of p associated with (11)

with

Thus, the TM solutions are

For the TE modes, (14) provides the boundary conditions, and we are led to the solutions

TE Modes:
Substitution of  m and  n into (17) therefore gives

The wave number ky is obtained using this eigenvalue in the definition of q associated
with (12). With the understanding that either m or n can now be zero, the expression is
the same as that for the TM modes, (20). However, both m and n cannot be zero. If they
were, it follows from (22) that the axial H would be uniform over any given cross-
section of the guide. The integral of Faraday's law over the cross-section of the guide,
with the enclosing contour C adjacent to the perfectly conducting boundaries as shown
in Fig. 13.4.2, requires that

where A is the cross-sectional area of the guide. Because the contour on the left is
adjacent to the perfectly conducting boundaries, the line integral of E must be zero. It
follows that for the m = 0, n = 0 mode, Hy = 0. If there were such a mode, it would have
both E and H transverse to the guide axis. We will show in Sec. 14.2, where TEM
modes are considered in general, that TEM modes cannot exist within a perfectly
conducting pipe.

Figure 13.4.2 Cross-section of guide with contour adjacent to perfectly conducting


walls.

Even though the dispersion equations for the TM and TE modes only differ in the
allowed lowest values of (m, n), the field distributions of these modes are very different.

The superposition of TE modes gives


where m  n   0. The frequency at which a given mode switches from evanescence to
propagation is an important parameter. This cutoff frequency follows from (20) as

TM Modes:

TE Modes:

Rearranging this expression gives the normalized cutoff frequency as functions of the
aspect ratio a/w of the guide.

The numbering of the modes is standardized. The dimension w is chosen as w   a, and
the first index m gives the variation of the field along a. The TE10 mode then has the
lowest cutoff frequency and is called the dominant mode. All other modes have higher
cutoff frequencies (except, of course, in the case of the square cross-section for which
TE01 has the same cutoff frequency). Guides are usually designed so that at the
frequency of operation only the dominant mode is propagating, while all higher-order
modes are "cutoff."

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