A study of three techniques used in the diffraction analysis ofshaped dual-reflector antennas

An examination is presented of three techniques used for the efficient computation of fields diffracted by a subreflector that has been shaped by geometrical optics synthesis. It is found that these techniques, which are based on the geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD), produce errors in the computed fields that are specific to shaped reflectors. These errors are examined for a reflector system shaped to produce maximum gain from a tapered feed illumination. The discrepancies are directly related to the caustic being located near an observation point of the GTD calculations. The errors found are localized, and they increase in magnitude as the caustic approaches the main reflector. In a general offset geometry, the location of the caustic may be located arbitrarily close to the main reflector given a prescribed output aperture distribution. For the specific case considered here-the common situation of shaping to produce maximum gain-the caustic is located near the edge of the main reflector and on the reflection shadow boundary. A local correction is derived which creates a uniform solution through the caustic and across the reflection shadow boundary. Away from this point the calculation recedes to the standard GTD solution     

Analysis of aperture blockage in reflector antennas by usingobstacle-located blockage currents

An improved method is presented to account for blockage effects in the analysis of reflector antennas. Commonly this is done by introducing shadows on the reflector surface according to the location of the obstacles when performing the physical optics integration. By using physical optics blockage currents located at the blocking obstacle instead of at the main reflector surface, the effect of the different locations in the axial direction is accurately accounted for. This can easily be included by a single phase factor in existing computer programs based on physical optics integration     

Pump depletion and saturation of two-photon resonant third-harmonic generation processes

Theoretical efficiency limitations for a two-photon resonant third-harmonic generation (THG) process are analyzed in a treatment which includes all nonlinear processes associated with the two-photon resonance assuming negligible material excitation. Results are presented for both collimated-beam and tight-focusing geometries. The theory is applied to experimental results for THG of CO2laser radiation in liquid CO-O2mixtures; good agreement is found for the observed saturation in the THG efficiency in a tight-focusing geometry.     

Study of element patterns and excitations of the line feeds of the spherical reflector antenna in Arecibo

The element patterns of the circularly polarized line feeds for the spherical reflector in Arecibo are calculated, showing strong endfire radiation. The radiation fields of the line feeds are then obtained by adding up the contributions from all elements. The optimum excitation of the feed is found by an approximate stationary-phase solution of the radiation field. This shows that the element pattern gives a large phase contribution to the excitation, because of the finite diameter of the feed. If not corrected for, this phase error can cause losses up to 1.5 dB. The excitation is optimized further by cutting and trying. The validity of the analytical models is checked by calculation of the radiation pattern of the existing 96.6 ft 430 MHz feed. The excitation is modeled from measured phases along the feed. The calculated radiation patterns show good agreement with the measurements, including the phase errors and the dip in the center. By using the proposed new excitation it should be possible to increase the efficiency of the 96.6 ft feed by 0.7 dB and to increase the efficiency of the 40 ft feeds at higher frequencies by even more.     

Study of antennas in reverberation chamber using method of moments with cavity Green's function calculated by Ewald summation

A numerical model of wires in rectangular metal cavities is introduced for computing antennas in a simplified theoretical reverberation chamber. The code is based on the method of moments, and it uses the Ewald summation for efficient calculation of the cavity Green's function. The Q-value of the chamber is accounted for in the model by a homogeneous material filling the chamber. The S-parameters of two dipoles placed in many random positions in the cavity are computed and averaged to provide the average transfer function of the chamber. This represents mode stirring by moving the antennas, referred to as position stirring. The computed results are compared with theoretical statistical values as well as experimental results. The discrepancies are discussed.     

Analysis and measurements of conformal patch array antennas on multilayer circular cylinder

In this paper, we present a method of moments (MoM) program to analyze different configurations of arrays of cylindrical-rectangular patches. The patches can be located inside or on the surface of a multilayer circular-cylindrical structure and can be arbitrarily rotated. The antenna structure is rigorously taken into account by using proper Green's functions, and the array is analyzed by using an element-by-element approach. The elements of the MoM matrix are calculated in the spectral domain, and special attention is given to their numerical treatment when analyzing cylindrical antennas with large radii. A laboratory model is built to test different configurations of patches and to validate calculated results. The agreement between measurements and calculations is very good.     

Development of a dual-reflector feed for the Arecibo radiotelescope: an overview

The 305-m spherical-reflector antenna of the Arecibo Observatory will be equipped with a dual-reflector feed. This reflector system is often referred to as the Gregorian. An overview of the work that led to this design is given, and the basic ideas behind the design are described. The methods and algorithms that have been developed to synthesize the shapes of the two reflectors and to analyze them are reviewed. Results are given of analysis by forward ray tracing, using geometrical optics with edge-diffraction corrections included. At low frequencies, analysis is performed by physical optics (PO) integration. A `mini-Gregorian' that has been constructed, built, and tested to verify the dual-reflector feed concept is described     

A fast mode analysis for waveguides of arbitrary cross section with multiple regions by using a spectrum of two-dimensional solutions and asymptotic waveform evaluation

A fast mode analysis for waveguides of arbitrary cross section with multiple regions is presented in this paper. The analysis is based on a spectrum of two-dimensional (2-D) solutions with application of asymptotic waveform evaluation, which requires only several 2-D solutions in searching for the propagation modes and calculating the field distribution of the modes in waveguides. The boundaries of waveguides can be modeled by perfect electric conductors, perfect magnetic conductors, dielectric materials, and asymptotic strip boundary conditions. By this modeling, one can also analyze the waveguides with the soft and hard surfaces. The method is excitation dependent, which provides a tool to analyze the response of different modes to different excitations. No existence of spurious modes is experienced by using this method. The verification and comparison of the numerical results with analytical, published data, and measurements are also presented in this paper.     

Optical and electrical properties of CdGeAs2

Large-grained ingots of CdGeAs₂ have been grown from near-stoichiometric melts. Resistivity and Hall coefficient (R_H) measurements were made on a large number of samples at 77 and 300 K and in some cases up to 450 K. Good fits to the log R_H vs 1/T plots are obtained by using a model that assumes three kinds of electronic levels within the energy gap: donors, shallow acceptors, and acceptors with an ionization energy of 0. 30 eV. The deep acceptors are probably native defects, since their concentration varies by nearly four orders of magnitude from ingot to ingot with little change in impurity concentration. Between the intrinsic absorption edge at about 2. 5 Μm and the two-phonon absorption band at 18 Μm, the optical absorption increases with increasing deep acceptor concentration. By using oriented single-crystal samples ∼ 1 cm on a side, conversion efficiencies as high as 27% have been achieved for second-harmonic generation with single-mode pulses from a CO₂ TEA laser.     

Losses, sidelobes, and cross polarization caused by feed-supportstruts in reflector antennas: design curves

In a symmetrical reflector antenna the feed system and its support struts block the aperture and thereby deteriorate the radiation characteristics. Simple design curves are presented for the efficiency reduction, the sidelobe levels, and the cross polarization caused by strut blockage. The results are obtained from an analytical study that includes the induced field ratio (IFR) of the struts. The most significant IFR values for struts with circular cross section are calculated and plotted in a way which makes them easy to use as design curves. The use of the design curves is demonstrated by an example