Spoof plasmon radiation using sinusoidally modulated corrugated reactance surfaces

In this paper we theoretically investigate the feasibility of creating leaky wave antennas capable of converting spoof plasmons to radiating modes. Spoof plasmons are surface waves excited along metallic corrugated surfaces and they are considered the microwave and THz equivalent of optical surface plasmon polaritons. Given that a corrugated surface is essentially a reactance surface, the proposed design methodology relies on engineering a corrugated surface so that it exhibits a sinusoidally modulated reactance profile. Through such non-uniform periodic reactance surfaces, guided surface waves can efficiently couple into free-space radiating modes. This requires the development of a realistic methodology that effectively maps the necessary sinusoidal reactance variation to a sinusoidal variation corresponding to the depth of the grooves. Both planar and cylindrical corrugated surfaces are examined and it is numerically demonstrated that the corresponding sinusoidally modulated leaky wave structures can very efficiently convert guided spoof plasmons to radiating modes.