This letter proposes a novel simple planar circularly polarized (CP) frequency beam-scanning (FBS) antenna using slotline (SL) and spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) structure. A new SL-SSPP slow-wave transmission line (TL) is initiated by periodically introducing orthogonal tilted corrugated grooves on both sides of the SL, which can generate orthogonal electric-field components in the same cross-section along the TL, and its dispersion characteristic can be flexibly adjusted. In order to excite an effective radiating mode from the propagating slow-wave mode, a simple double-sided tilted modulation method is devised to periodically modulate the SL-SSPP TL. Further, to obtain the CP characteristic, a π/2 phase displacement between the sinusoidal modulation structures on both sides of the TL is designed. The configuration of presented CP beam-scanning antenna owns the merits of simpler structure, low profile, and single dielectric layer. A prototype is manufactured and then tested to verify the proposed design. The experimental results con-firm that, within the 3-dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth (from 7.2 to 8.35 GHz), the designed antenna achieves a 35° beam-steering range with CP characteristic. This antenna also realizes appropriate gain and radiation efficiency in the working band.

In this letter, a novel compact frequency beam-scanning antenna (FBSA) using composite waveguide based on folded half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (FHMSIW) and spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPP) is proposed. The novel composite FHMSIW/SSPP waveguide with compact size and high field-confinement is initiated by embedding dual SSPP structures into the FHMSIW. Its transmission characteristic has flexible features from both the FHMSIW and SSPP. To excite the radiation mode from the composite slow-wave waveguide, a simple single-sided sinusoidal modulation method is designed and used. In this way, the common open stop-band problem around broadside is effectively eliminated, and the beam-scanning range of the antenna can be flexibly designed without changing the modulation structure. The presented scanning antenna owns a compact size and a simple feeding network. The experimental results indicate that the proposed FBSA can achieve continuous beam scanning from backward to forward in a wide scanning range of 60° within a bandwidth of 7.7–10.1 GHz. The stable unidirectional radiation patterns and appropriate gains are also realized in the entire operating frequency band.

Deep neural networks based on physical information are expected to be effective alternatives to numerical electromagnetic solvers because they can efficiently solve Maxwell’s equations and obtain the nonlinear physical relationship between the device geometry and its output fields. In this article, we propose a mesh-free and unsupervised time-domain MaxwellNet as a forward model for time-domain electromagnetic simulations, which is qualified to predict the electromagnetic fields of inhomogeneous media of different materials with similar settings in a single inference. We use this network to predict the time-domain electromagnetic fields of several structures with different geometries and achieve good results. Furthermore, experiments show that the model has good generalization ability in both the time and problem-solving range. Finally, we treat the trained model as a Maxwell solver and use it for the inverse design problem. Numerical results show the effectiveness of time-domain MaxwellNet in solving both forward and inverse problems.

In this paper, a new printed triple-band planar antenna combing two different modified monopoles and an arc-shaped defected ground plane is proposed and studied. The used two simple monopoles consist of a rectangular ring and a rectangular patch attached a straight metal strip. And a compact arc-shaped defected ground structure is proposed and used to excite higher resonance frequency and improve the impedance matching of the antenna at lower and middle resonance frequencies. The main radiation element of the proposed antenna composed of only two simple monopoles can support three omnidirectional radiation modes at three desired bands. To indicate the working mechanism of the antenna, the design process is illustrated and the parametric studies are carried out. The experimental results of the fabricated prototype confirm that the triple-band antenna has better radiation efficiencies, appropriate gains, and stable omnidirectional radiation patterns. And the tested results also show that the antenna can provide enough bandwidths of 2.35–2.52, 3.2–4.16, and 5.13–5.87 GHz to cover all the desired 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN and 3.5/5.5 GHz WiMAX operations. Moreover, the presented antenna has a very simple structure. Thus, the designed antenna has high practicality and broad prospects for WLAN and WiMAX applications.

Optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) have enhanced integration and communication capabilities in various applications. With the continued increase in complexity and scale, the need for an accurate and efficient simulation environment compatible with photonics and electronics becomes paramount. This paper introduces a method using the Verilog-A hardware language in the electronic design automation (EDA) platform to create equivalent circuit and compact models for photonic devices, considering their dispersion, polarization, multimode, and bidirectional transmission characteristics. These models can be co-simulated alongside electrical components in the electronic simulator, covering both the time and frequency domains simultaneously. Model parameters can be modified at any stage of the design process. Using the full link of an optoelectronic transceiver as an example, analyses from our Verilog-A model system show a mean absolute percentage error of 1.55% in the time-domain and 0.0318% in the frequency-domain when compared to the commercial co-simulation system (e.g., Virtuoso-INTERCONNECT). This underscores the accuracy and efficiency of our approach in OEICs design. By adopting this method, designers are enabled to conduct both electrical-specific and photonic-specific circuit analyses, as well as perform optoelectronic co-simulation within a unified platform seamlessly.

The inverse design method based on a generative adversarial network (GAN) combined with a simulation neural network (sim-NN) and the self-attention mechanism is proposed in order to improve the efficiency of GAN for designing nanophotonic devices. The sim-NN can guide the model to produce more accurate device designs via the spectrum comparison, whereas the self-attention mechanism can help to extract detailed features of the spectrum by exploring their global interconnections. The nanopatterned power splitter with a 2 μm × 2 μm interference region is designed as an example to obtain the average high transmission (>94%) and low back-reflection (<0.5%) over the broad wavelength range of 1200~1650 nm. As compared to other models, this method can produce larger proportions of high figure-of-merit devices with various desired power-splitting ratios.