The Dipole Impedance of an Aperture

The dipole impedance of an aperture in a plane conductor is obtained by modifying the general network formulation of electromagnetic apertures presented by Mautz and Harrington. The derived dipole impedances are combined in parallel to form an effective circuit description of low frequency aperture diffraction. Power transmitted into the aperture by an incident wave is determined by incorporating standard techniques for the transfer of wave power at an impedance mismatch. This transmitted power is divided into forward and backward scattered fields based upon the behavior of image currents surrounding the aperture, leading to a peak in forward scattered power above unity, consistent with known aperture behavior. The presented aperture circuit maintains an excellent correspondence with measurements of radiated power for an aperture excited by high energy electrons and with the numerically calculated impedance of a circular aperture using the finite element method.