New Leaky Wave Antenna Based on Stub-Loaded Rectangular Waveguide Partially Filled With Left-Handed Material

A new leaky wave antenna is presented in this paper, which is based on a stub-loaded rectangular waveguide partially filled with left-handed (LH) or right-handed (RH) dielectric slabs. The leakage properties of the new antenna are carefully examined by an approach of combining the multimode network theory with the mode-matching method. A systematic comparison is given for the leaky characteristics between the antenna filled with left hand material (LHM) and with right handed material (RHM). It has been found that the former is of larger leakage constant than that of the latter one. Extensive numerical results for the radiation characteristics of the antennas are given with physical explanations to establish useful guidelines for the antenna design.