Continuous scanning leaky‐wave antenna utilizing second‐mode spoof surface plasmon polaritons excitation

Continuous scanning leaky-wave antenna (LWA) based on second-mode spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) excitation has been proposed and validated in this article. Different from the existing modulation methods, connecting axisymmetric rectangular modulation is adopted to excite the −first harmonic. In this way, the slow-wave bound on the surface of the transmission line is converted into a radiation wave in space. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first presentation of LWA design utilizing second-mode SSPPs excitation. In the range from 5.0 to 9.0 GHz, the proposed LWA realizes continuous scanning from −54° ~ 11° with a quasi-omnidirectional beam in the vertical plane. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated and measured, and the measured results show good agreement with the simulated. The proposed LWA has potential applications in communication systems and radars.