Radiation and guiding in the presence of a unidirectionally conducting screen

A modal method is employed to construct the solution for the fields radiated by a linearly phased electric line current and by an electric current element oriented arbitrarily in a plane parallel to an infinite, unidirectionally conducting screen. In addition to the radiation field which is calculated, these sources generate surface waves with drastically different behavior for the two types of excitation. This aspect, related to the anisotropy of the surface, is explored and is clarified by the consideration of a source of finite extent which reveals both the quasi-line source and quasi-point source characteristics. The peculiarities of surface waves on this anisotropic structure are given detailed consideration and are explained in simple physical terms. The present analysis contains results more general than those published recently in the literature [1]-[4], and it exhibits the connection between certain alternative but quite dissimilar forms of the solution.