portance of the edge singularities in the fields of apertures larger and smaller than resonant dimensions.

The
edge fields are so large for small apertures that radiation
duetothetermshaving
a singularbehavior
a tt h e
apertureedges,formsthemajorcontributiontothe
fields scattered by such an aperture. For apertures of
largerthanresonantdimensions,however,itappears
thattheedgesingularitieshave
a n almost negligible
effect on the total scattered field.
I t is also formally possible to evaluate the
ponent of the aperture field. This may be expected to
be small i n the case considered here, since the incident
field contains no s conlponent and the edgesof the aperture are either parallel or perpendicular to the incident
electric field. The component of the aperturefield may
be represented by a series of functionssatisfyingthe
edgecondition,andthetwosides
of ( l i j canbeespanded in pouyer series to obtain algebraic equations i n
the unknown coefficients of the aperture field. Since the
power series on each side of ( I f ) is differentiated, h o w
ever, convergence is much slower and the solution cannotbeobtainedb>-simpl>.truncatillgthesystem
of
equations.Theresults
gi\len here for scatteringcross

section are not affected by neglecting the component

of aperture field, since it cannot radiate for the range of
aperture spacings considered.

IS.CONCI.ITSIOSS
The problem of diffraction b>r an aperturein the range
of wavelengthscorrespondingtotheresonance
region
as aboundaryvalue
requiresarigorous,fornlulation
problem. Physical approxilnations can be made i n both
the long and the short wavelength limits, but these approximate solutions break down i n the resonance region
i n most cases.
A rigorousfornlulationhas
been presentedherefor
the problem of diffraction by ;I periodicall>- apertured
conducting screen. The form of the solution is very complicated, but is suitablefornumericalcomputation.
From numerical solution, the aperture resonance has
been demonstrated? and the relative importance of the
singularities of the field which occur a t t h e edges of the
aperturescanbeseen.Theedgesingularitieshave
a
pronouncedeffectonthescattered
field for apertures
smallerthanresonantdimensions,butonly
a small
effect for larger apertures.

Admittance of a Cavity-Backed Annular Slot Antenna*

J. GA4LEJSj',MEMBER,

IRE, AKD

T. W. THOMPSON,$

MEMBER, IRE

Summary-An annular slot antenna which is backed by acylincalculated [4]. This anal>-sis emphasizes the finite condrical or a coaxial cavity is excited by a current
sheet in the slot
ductivit!. of the cavit>and does not consider the
plane which exhibits no azimuthal (6)variation. The integral equaslot
susceptance.
tion which relates the radial electric field in the slot plane to the
linear source current density is solved by variational techniques. The The slot susceptance determines the bandwidth limitations of the antenna. Sizeable susceptances and narnumerical calculations emphasize narrow slots and shallow cavities.
The slot antennas may resonate with cavity depth z ~ < h / 4 .A resorow bandwidths maybe expected for cavit>--backed slots
nant antenna exhibits nearly the same bandwidth as the slot which of restricted size. Ob\-ious size restrictions arise in airis backed by h/4 deep cavity. Dielectric cavity loading decreases the
borne applications, but economical considerations m a > size of a resonant cavity, but it also decreases the antenna bandalso
limit thesize of ground based and possibly hardened
width.

antenna structures for use at H F or standard broadcast

band.
ADIXTIOK characteristics of annular slot antenThis paper \ d l consider the complex admittance of
nashavebeenconsidered
b>+ severalauthors
a cavity-backed annular slot antenna. The conductance
[1]-[3]. However,
there
is little
information
and the susceptance of such antennas which are excited
available on the effects of a back-up cavity. The radia- b,. a voltage impressed across the slot can be calculated
tion conductance of an annular slot antenna whichis
using thevariationaltechniques
oi Schwinger and
backedby a hemisphericalcavityhasbeenrecently
Levine [SI. Thecalculations ma>- follow thegeneral
procedure of Levine and Papas [ 2 ] \vho have considered
Received February 2.3, 1962; rex-ised manuscript recei\.ed June
the
principalmodeadnlittance
of a coaxialline t h a t
1962. This work was sponsored by the 1-S.AG Systems Command,
radiates in a semi-infinite space. The admittance of the
Y.
Rome -Air Development Center,
t Sylvania Electric Products, II'altham, Mass.
slot as seen b?- the source is the ratio of the source cur2 L3eparrment of ElectricalEngineering.CornellI-niversity.
rent I to the voltage across the slot
l,-. The magnetic
Itham,
1
'
.
I. INTKODL-CTIOK

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fields in the cavity H+- and in the outside space H++

can be expressed as integrals of the electric field in the

density J,. The integralspJH+& will differ bl- the source

current I=psJ,d#. Now I and J , are expressed a s integrals of theelectric field E , in the slot. The integral
equation for E , may be solved by the variational techniques used by Levine and Papas
[2].
The possible #+dependence of the excited fields which
is caused by a nonuniform distribution of the source
current density J , is ignored. Therefore, the results of
the present calculations are strictly applicable only to
a n idealizedsourcecurrentdensity
J s = 1 / ( 2 r p ) ,but
involveapproximationstootherforms
of excitation.
The electric field in the slot plane
E , is computed in
Section I1 from a formal solution of the integral equation as a series in powers
of pn, where is the radius and
where the integers n 2
1). However, the analysis becomes rather complex with increasing values
of n and
the numerical computations are restricted to
n=
1
and 0. The slot admittance is discussed in Section 111.
for cylindrical back-up cavities and
in Section IV for
for coaxial back-up cavities. When the cavity walls and
the conducting screen are perfect electric conductors,
only the upper half space reflects a conductance G into
theslotplane.Theupper
half spaceandthe
cutoff
cavity modes reflect a capacitive susceptance Beep into
the slot plane, while the propagating cavity modes reflect an inductive susceptance Bind. The cavity depths
where the antennabecomes self-resonant (B,,,
-Bind)
and the corresponding GIB,,, or G / [B i n d [ ratiosare
alsocalculatedinSections
I11 and 117. Self-resonant
antennas exhibit about the same bandwidth
as slots
backed by X/4 deep cavities unless resonance occurs for
cavity depths
<X/30. The antenna bandwidth is
significantly decreased by decreasing the cavity depth
below its value at antenna resonance. Dielectric cavity
loading is shown to decrease theG/B,,, ratio. However,
dielectric loading permits a decrease of the radius in a
cylindrical cavity and decreaseof the depth ina coaxial
cavity.Forsmallslots
of radius
thecylindrical
back-up cavity exhibits a larger G / [B ratio which is
still smaller than GIB,,, of a top loaded vertical electrical dipole of comparable volume.

Fig. 1-Geometry

where k l =

of cylindrical and coaxial cavities.

u d G l . For a cylindrical cavity [6]

-40

R,,(P)

(3)

X J l ( X n P )

where Jm(x)is the Bessel function of the first kind of

order m,

Jo(X,b)
and
N,-l

(5)

(b"2)J1'(X,,b).

For a coaxial cavity [Z]

AYn[Jl(hnp)

where Ym(.t-) isthe

order m,

I'o(Xna)

J o ( L a ) Y ~ ( L P ) ](6)

Bessel function of secondkind

of

Jo(Xna.) J'O(Xn6)

(7)

Yo(Ana)Jo(Xnb)

and

The radial electricfield component E, is computed from

as

The condition E,

20)

is met with

11. INTEGRAL
EQUATION

exp (2jKlzo)
(10)
The geometry of the slotted coaxial and cylindrical
B,
exp
k I 2201.
cavities is shown in Fig.1. The subsequent development
The amplitudes A
, are related to the excitation field
will be carried out for both cavity types. For an exp
Multiplying
0), as
time variation of the symmetrical fields the mag- of the cavity E,(p, 0)
is given b y
[ 6 ] computed from (9), with R n ( p ) p d p and integrating from
netic field in the cavity H,-(p,
a to 6(a 0, for a cylindrical cavity) gives
Ao
H+-(p, z )
(eiklz
B0-j~1~)
A.R,(p)
-jml
&(p)Rn(p)p&
7l=l
A,,

l:

[exp (\An2

K12

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Z)

B n exp

dXn2 k1' z)] (1)

e24AIa-k12

4/xn2

K12

Galejs and Thompson Cacity-Backed Annular Slot Antenna

196.2

For a coaxial cavity. multiplying E,(p, 0) with p d p and

integrating from p a to b gives

For

0, H,-(p,

673

where the first termof the left-hand side is equal to zero

for cylindrical cavities according to ( 2 ) , and where

The radial electric field distribution & ( p ) and also the

source current I are determined from a solution of (18).
A variational principle for determining & ( p ) may be constructed by multiplying (18) with p & ( p ) and then integratingtheresultantequation
from p = p l to p = p z .
Llssunling t h a t

of (1) becomes

where B o , -4,>
and B, are given by ( l o ) , (12) and
respectivel!.. --lo and R,,are given b!- (2) and (3)for
cylindricalcavitiesand
by (13) and ( 6 ) for coaxial
cavities.
The fields excited by an aperture in a n infinite conducting plane may be determined from the distribution
of thetangentialelectric
fields in theaperture.
annular aperture is assumed to be excited b,, a radial electric field
which exhibits no
variations. The resultant magnetic field which has only a component is
givenfor a n exp (jut) timevariation of the fields by
121, [41, [51 a s

1 "

&(P)

C amprn,

(20)

m=O

HQ'(p,

where

-1

and k = u x / , i i , where p 1 and p r are the inner and outer

Qnpn p z
V
Jp:*6(p)dp
radii of the slot respectively. The last integral can be
n=l
p1
expressed in terms of Bessel functions
[X]. After
evaluating the 6 integral this gives
The followingnotation will be introduced to sinlplif\r
(21).
CO
H,+(p,
jL!eoJp~2&(p~)p'dp
0

esp

k?

]J1([p)J1([p')ld(

(17)

where arg t/c2- kz 0,

for
k,
k , respectively.
The tangential fields H,-(p, 0) and H,+(p, 0) differ by
linear source current density J,(p) across the slot. Eqs.
( 1 4 ) and (17) result in the integral equation

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For cylindrical cavities

result in

P,

Yo

with Hoo determined from (25).

If b1ZO
and (35) result in

with N , given by (5). For coaxial cavities

Hol log ( P B / P ~ )

PI)

bl

Hol(pe

log

cy,

:I7,Yo(h,a)

(33)

a11

Pq

RJo(h,a)

(34)

the admittance Y is obtained from

with N , given by (S). Applying (25) to (29) to

follows that

(42)

PI)

as

it

X I m

or from (37) as
After defining

2blHo1

Hoo
Y1

bl(m
( 3 5 ) may be rearranged into

rv

111. ADMITTANCE WITH

m

CO

BOO 2

2rjwelao2

bnHon
,,=l

4-

bnbmHnm.

(37)

n = l m=l

The expression ( I / V ) ,which maybecomputedfrom

or (37), can be shown to be stationary with respect
to the first variation in
or in bn [9].
Setting

l2

CTLINDRICXLCAVITY

The admittance with a cylindrical cavity will be calculated only for the zero order approximation
of the
field distribution across the slot (bn=O). Eq. (41) may
be rewritten as

The admittance reflected to the slot plane by the outside space is

i t follows t h a t
lL=l

b1Ell

m 1 3

bnHon

dV
bnbtnHnm]-

db,

m= 1

y+
[log
and the admittance reflected by the cavity is

Substituting (39) in (37)

The symbols
N, and f~(x,>
are defined b y (22), (5)
and
respectively.
Y+ of
is easily related to the principal mode adI t is seen that (39) represents an infinite set of non- mittance seen by a coaxial line that radiates in a half
linear equations for determiningbm. Approximate values space.Comparison of
with
of Levine and
of the coefficients b, maybeobtainedbyassuming
Papas
shows t h a t
b, 0 for m
and g, 0 for
Q. High JI and Q
values will result in more accurate expressions for b,.
Because of thealgebraiceffortassociatedwiththe
evaluation of b, and H,,, coefficients, X will berestrictedto
1 althoughhigher Q values will beconPlJ
sidered in the examples.
The simplest solution is obtained by assuming that where Y ( 0 ) ; Y 0 ] C denotes the normalized admittance
all the coefficients b, 0. In this particular case (35) and of the coaxial line [2] and where the asterisk denotes the
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675

(49)

where
Substituting (5) and (23) in (49) and approximating
log
by
gives
Fig. 2-Slot

where < O . A slot of

will be considered a s a n
example. For
the
slot
admittance
is Y+= (4.8+j37.5)
millimhos. The
susceptance
B Im( I,'++ )E'
is calculated for Q= 100 and is plotted
inFig. 2. E'or ( b i X ) <0.384all thecavity modes are
belowcutoff and the cavity reflects a capacitive susceptance. By increasing the cavity radius (bihj
to
0.384
one of the cavit!; modes w i l l propagate. This mode reflects
inductive
susceptance
which is indicated by
dashes in Fig. 2. The inductive susceptance
is sufficient to tune out the capacitive parts
BCaI,ofI"and
E'+ if the propagating mode is near its cutoff. I t is seen
that Bindl at resonance (B= 0 ) is only slightly-less
than U for
unlessresonanceoccurs
for
Henceshallowself-resonantcavitiesexhibitsomewhat lower G:'B,,, ratiosthanca\litiesthe
depth of which approaches
The admittance ratio
of G = ReY to Be,,= -Bind
BI res a t resonance is plotted in Fig. 3 and the corresponding cavity depth is shown in Fig. 4. The effect
of dielectric cavity loading
>EO)
is indicated b!, the
dotted and dashed curves. For zo;'X=const, the slots of
larger radii require a slight increase in cavity radius b?
b u t the\- provide a significant increase of the G.':BI res
ratio. G/i B ' ratios of more than 5 percentare
achieved with
and b
Dielectric cavitlloading decreases the cutoff radius
of the first propagatingcavitymodewhich
is indicated bs- vertical
dashedlinesinFigs.
3 and 4. The cavity radius b is
decreased, but the G.1 U1 ratio is alsodecreased by
dielectric loading of the cavity.

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susceptanre \vith

c>.lintirical cavity.

6'76
I

=b

Fig. 5-Admittance ratio G / B of annular slots backed bl- cylindrical

cavities.
propagating modes in the cavity.

For cavities of radius b <0.384X all the cavity modes

are below cutoff and they reflect a capacity into the
slot plane. Such cavitieswill be examined in conjunction
with slots which have a circumference 2xp2 comparable
to a wavelength X and with slots of p,<<X.
The plot of the GIB ratio of the larger slots in Fig. 5
is about the same
as the G! B res ratio in Fig. 3 for slots
whichhaveback-upcavities
of radius b>0.384h. An
increase of the cavity radius b from b = p 2 to b
may make the antenna self-resonant and obviate the
need for a tuning inductance, butit does not provide an
increase of GIB or of the antenna bandwidth.
The admittance ratio GIB is decreased for the small
slots and it is less than 10" for b=p2<0.0ZX, a s seen
fromFig.
6. Forsmallcavities
kl<<Xq= ( q - $ ) x i b .
G/B will become approximately proportional to
if
<<pJn, while B is only slightly dependent on
if
>p?/n. An upper bound to the possible increase
of GIB of a small slot
with an increasing cavit>size can be obtained from the admittance
of the same
slot in an infinite conducting screen G,+iB, which may
be readily computed from the impedance of a complementary loop antenna [lo]. I t follows that

IC!

OA06
Iz$A

Fig. 6-Admittance ratio G / B of small annular slots

backed by shallow cylindrical cavities.

Gs

B .max

2B.3

l 2 log

0.006

(kPd3

(2%)

Fig. 7-Admittance ratio G I B of a top loaded dipole and of

an annular slot backed by a cylindrical cavity.

P1

which has been also indicated in Fig.

6. The G / B ratio
of the small slots of Fig. 6 is compared in Fig. 7 with
the GIB ratio of a circular top loaded dipole,
which is
given by 11 as

3E,

where E , is the effective relative dielectric constant of

the antenna,h is the antenna height and
a is its effective
radius.Theeffectiveradius
a becomesequaltothe
actual radius of the antenna disk p z if a<<k. The plot
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of GIB of (52) for er= 1 in Fig. 7 indicates that the top

loaded dipole exhibits higher values
of G/B than the
slot with a cylindrical cavity of comparable size.
ADMITTANCE WITH A

COAXIAL
CAVITP

The admittance with a coaxial cavity will be calculatedforthe

zero order (b,=
andthefirstorder
( b l # O ) field distributionacrosstheslot.Forthezero
order field distribution the admittance Yo isgiven b y
(45). The admittance reflected to the slot plane by the
outside space Y+ is the same as in (46) and (49). T h e
admittancereflected bs; the cavity is computedfrom

IO
b h

OF
Fig.9->1dmittanreratio

Fig. 8-Slot

G/IB

Coaxialcavity.

at

susceptance n.ith a coaxial cavity.

r

u
0

Fig. 10-Resonance depth of a coaxial cavity.

where < O . The susceptance B I m ( Y++I-),

a s well
astheinductivesusceptance
reflected bythepropagating cavit\- mode Bind are plotted in Fig. 6. Xgain,
the cavity resonance is defined by the condition B = O
or Bind= -Bcap. I t is seen t h a t Bin,+]a t resonanceis
near]). the same as B for
except when resonance occurs for
This implies that a relatively shallow self-resonant cavity ( B 0) will exhibit
nearly the sameG/Bcap ratio as a
deep cavitli which
will requireadditionalinductivetuning.Whenthe
cavity depth is less than the resonant depth
the
slotsusceptance becomes inductive,theslotrequires
additional capacitive tuning, and the
Bind! ratio is
decreased relative to its value a t t h e self-resonance. -4
self-resonant antenna will exhibit near117 the same bandwidth asa slot with a
deep cavit>-. The bandwidth
of
the antenna is significantly decreased by decreasing the
cavity depth helow its value a t self-resonance.
The admittance ratio
of G = Re Ir to Bcnp -Bind
B res a t resonance is plotted in Fig. 9 and the correspondingcavitJ-depth
isshowninFig.
10.
G!!BI ratios of more than 5 percentareachieved
with b
and (b:a) 2. G/ B
of nearly 10 per cent
is reached with b = X / 4 and
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mi

k
u
3

Fig. ll--\.ariation

500

of the slot susceptance with slot width.

ing cavitJ- depth

where the smaller depth
figures are associated with the larger
( b / a ) ratios. For
a given G/l I?
ratio the slots are of approximately the
same size for coaxial and cylindrical cavities. However,
the radius of the resonant coaxial cavit?. is almost one
half of the radius of the c>-lindrical cavity. T h e effect
of a dielectric cavity loading ( e l
is indicated bq; the
dotted and dashed curves. Dielectric loading decreases
theresonantcavit)?depth,but
i t alsodecreasesthe
G;]B,,,j ratio.The effects oi differentslotwidths is
indicated in Fig. 11.

For very small slots of (pp/X)<<l the slot susceptance

isapproximatedbythe
first term of (53). Numerical
calculations show that this approximatesB within a few
per cent if
<0.02. S o w B is inductive and independent of the dielectric loading. The resulting GIB is
given by

G
B

20

log (b;a)
(54)

Bind

which is seen to be much less than GIB inFig. 2 or

G/B
of (51) of the cylindrical cavity.
For the firstorder field distribution ( b 1 # 0 ) the admittance Y1 has been calculatedfrom (44). A rather
lengthy calculation resultsfor el eo and b
in

lmax

AY=

Y1-

x?

(55)
2 ? r

where

2(kpp)
Pl

(56)

Thecorrectiontotheadmittance
AY may beexpected to be small for narrow slots since it depends on
the square of
Considering
20,
b/a= 2 and b / X = 5 , ( 5 5 ) and (56) result in A II
(7.3
mhowhich is negligible with respect
to Yol 5
mho.

G/Beapratio may be comparable to the G/B,,, ratio of

a self-resonantcoaxial

cavityantenna
of thesame
volume.
In the antenna of a small size the susceptance B is
capacitive with a cylindrical cavity and inductive with
a coaxialcavity. Thecylindricalcavityexhibitsthe
larger G;B ratio, which is still smaller than
GIB,,, of
a top loaded vertical electric dipole antenna
of comparable volume.

B . Limitations of the analysis

The above analysis tends to illustrate the bandwidth
limitations of annular slot antennas which are backed
by shallowcavities.However,theassumedexcitation
by a uniform current sheet in the slot plane is anidealization and the resultof the calculations can not beused
for estimating the admittance for excitation which exhibit a sizeable azimuthal field variation along the slot.
The variational formulation of the slot admittance
formally specifies the field distributions across the slot
with anarbitraryaccuracy.However,thesolution
is
rather simple only for the zero order field distribution
(b,) 0). There are already computational
difficulties for
the first order field distribution ( b J # O ) , and the present
method does not appear suited for determining highly
accurate field distributions across the slot which would
involve a large number of b,s for very narrow slots.

VI.

AACKNOWLEDGMENT

Theauthorsappreciatetheaid
of P. Kimball, E.
Larsen and Mrs. J. Van Horninthecomputerprogramming and numerical computations.

REFERENCES
V. DISCVSSIOX
A . Conclusions
The admittance of Y=G+jB of annularslotswas
calculated for cylindrical and coaxial back-up cavities.
The antenna self-resonance
-Bind or B 0 ) for a
givenratio of G/B,,, can be achievedwith a smaller
cavity volume
in
the coaxial geometq-.The
selfresonant antennas exhibit about the same G:Bca,, ratio
as slots backed by
deep cavities, unless the cavity
resonates for a cavity depth
<X,!30.
further decrease of thecavitydepthdeteriorates
GjB,,, ratio.
Dielectric cavityloadingdecreasesthe
G,:B,,, ratio,
although it decreases the cavity volumewhich is required for achieving self-resonance.
The radiusof the cylindrical cavity may be decreased
t o a point where all the cavity modes are below cutoff
and reflect a capacity in the slot plane. The resulting

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A. A. Pistolkors, Theory of the circular diffraction antenna,

PROC. IRE,
vol. 36, pp. 54-60; January, 1948.
H. Le\;ine and C. H. Papas, Theory of circular diffraction antenna, J. A$@. Plzys., vol. 22,pp. 29-43; January, 1951. (Eq.
(6.12)shouldbemultipliedwith
a factor2[(T-1)/(7+1)]*).
bIarcuvitz, \\.aveguide Handbook,McGraw-HillBook
Co., IIK., h-ew York,
Y.,Sec. 4.16; 1951.
J . Res.
J . R. \Vait, -4 lowfrequencyannular-slotantenna,
N B S . vol. 60, pp. 59-64; January, 1958. (Eq. (12) should be
multiplied with 2).
H. Levine and J. Schwinger, On the theory of electromagnetic
wave diffraction by an aperture in a n infinite plane conducting
screen, Comm. Pu.re. A p p l . X&., vol. 3, pp. 355-391; December, 1950.
S. Marcuvitz,iYaveguideHandbook,iVcGraw-HillBook
Co., Inc., Sew I7ork, N. Y . , Sec. 2.3 and
1951.
Levine and Papas,up. tit., see ( A S ) and (A.12).
-4..
Sommerfeld,PartialDifferentialEquations,Academic
Press Inc., Sew York,
Y., 1949. Eqs. (31.14) and (21.3a).
P. 31. Morse and H. Feshbach, Methods of Theoretical Physics, hIcGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, IC. Y., pp. 11081109; 1953.
J . D. Kraus, -Antennas,McGraw-HillBook
Co., Inc., S e w
York,
Y.,pp. i69-371; 1950.
H. A. \\:heeler, Fundamentallimitations of smallantennas,
PROC.
IRE, vol. 35, pp. 1479-1484; December, 1947.