Analysis of a ridge waveguide using overlapping T-blocks

A T-block (TB) approach is proposed to analyze the dispersion relation of a ridge waveguide. The field representations of a TB are obtained with the Green's function and mode-matching technique. Rigorous, yet simple dispersion equations for symmetric and asymmetric ridge waveguides are presented using a superposition of overlapping TBs. The rapid convergence characteristics of the dispersion equation are illustrated in terms of the cutoff wavenumbers. A closed-form dispersion relation, based on a dominant-mode approximation, is shown to be accurate for most practical applications such as couplers, filters, and polarizer designs.