Fdtd Simulations of Reconfigurable Electromagnetic Band Gap Structures for Millimeter Wave Applications

Metallo-dielectric electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures are studied in the millimeter regime with a finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulator. Several EBG waveguiding structures are considered for millimeter-wave power splitting, switching and filtering operations. It is demonstrated that triangular EBG structures lend themselves naturally to the design of Y-power splitters. Square EBG structures with circular and square rods are shown to lead naturally to straight in-line waveguide filter applications. Comparisons between EBG millimeter-wave waveguide filters formed with dielectric and metallic rods are given. It is shown that high quality broad bandwidth, millimeter-wave bandstop filters can be realized with square EBG structures with circular metallic rods. It is demonstrated that multiple bandstop performance in a single device can be obtained by cascading together multiple EBG millimeter-wave waveguide filters. It is also demonstrated that one can control the electromagnetic power flow in these millimeter-wave EBG waveguide devices by introducing additional local defects. It is shown that the Y-power splitter can be made reconfigurable by using imposed current distributions to achieve these local defects and, consequently, that a millimeter-wave EBG switch can be realized.