Synthesis of 3-D Polarization Rotation Transmissive Surface by Arbitrary Angle Based on Orthogonally Inserted Parallel-Couple Slotlines

Abstract

In this article, a polarization rotation transmissive surface (PRTS) of arbitrary angle based on a three-dimensional (3-D) frequency selective structure is proposed. The PRTS unit cell is composed of three parallel-coupled slotline sections with open-short ends etched on vertically and horizontally inserted singlelayer printed circuit boards (PCBs). Under the incidence of vertically polarized waves, the spatial waves are converted into guided waves by the open-circuited end of one slotline section, and then the guided waves are coupled to two other slotline sections that can act as two independent coupling transmission paths in the orthogonal planes. This can be observed as a power divider, and the power division ratio can be fully controlled by virtue of the coupling strengths of the two coupling transmission paths. Thus, the polarization of incidence waves can be rotated at an arbitrary angle at the output port. To simplify the design procedure, a filtering power division theory and an equivalent circuit model are first used to obtain the theoretical response. Subsequently, a coupling matrix is employed to synthesize and design the proposed PRTS. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed PRTS, two examples with different polarization rotation angles and fractional bandwidths at the same center frequency of 5 GHz and return loss of 20 dB are designed, fabricated, and measured. The measured results confirm our theoretical predictions and agree with the simulated results, thus demonstrating that the proposed PRTS exhibits stable frequency response under a large oblique incidence, in addition to their easiness in fabrication.