When a monochromatic electromagnetic plane wave is incident on an infinitely extending surface with the translation invariance property, a curious phenomenon often takes place at a low grazing angle of incidence, at which the total wave field vanishes and a dark shadow appears. This paper looks for physical and mathematical reasons why such a shadow occurs. Three cases are considered: wave reflection by a flat interface between two media, diffraction by a periodic surface, and scattering from a homogeneous random surface. Then, it is found that, when a translation invariant surface does not support guided waves (eigen functions) propagating with real propagation constants, such the shadow always takes place, because the primary excitation disappears at a low grazing angle of incidence. At the same time, a shadow form of solution is proposed. Further, several open problems are given for future works.

A higher mode tri-plate strip transmission line, in which the first higher mode propagates, was developed to realize mass production of millimeter-wave integrated circuits for application in intelligent transport systems, and its transmission characteristics were investigated. The design diagram of this guided mode was determined and a higher mode tri-plate strip transmission line was fabricated at 30 GHz. The dispersion curve was found to be similar to that of a rectangular waveguide and a low transmission loss of less than 10 dB/m was obtained. For construction of some functional devices, two types of basic reactance components, such as a gap and a slot, were expressed by equivalent circuits. The former was expressed by capacitive parameters, and the latter was expressed by an ideal transformer with inductive parameters. The gap-coupled circuit was successfully employed for a 3-pole 0.1 dB Chebyshev ripple band-pass filter with a small excess insertion loss of less than 1 dB at a center frequency of 32 GHz, as well as no spurious response in a bandwidth from 26.5 GHz to 40 GHz. The slot element acted as a matching circuit and a suppressor of the lowest mode, which is the TEM mode in the tri-plate strip transmission line. Moreover, this element was applied to a mode transformer between the lowest mode and the first higher mode.

Transmission characteristics of a high permittivity NRD guide were investigated. A preferable operating mode of the high permittivity NRD guide was newly identified and the wide bandwidth and low loss nature of the millimeter-wave region were observed. Moreover, a technique for construction of a millimeter-wave antenna was developed based on the high permittivity NRD guide. The novelty of the present technique lies in the use of a simple radiator, which consists of a tapered dielectric strip of simple structure which has good compatibility with millimeter wave integrated circuits. Since this radiator has a broad radiation pattern, a new type of antenna compatible with millimeter-wave integrated circuits for marine radar use was fabricated by locating the radiator at the focal point of a cylindrical parabolic reflector. Suitable beam patterns with half-power beam widths of 4in the azimuth plane and 38in the elevation plane can be obtained at 35 GHz.

We address, in this paper, the main features of hybrid modes propagating in a rectangular waveguide partially filled with pseudochiral Ω-slabs. For the particular case of a uniaxial Ω-slab, we show that LSE and LSM hybrid modes can propagate in this inhomogeneously filled rectangular waveguide. The influence of the Ω-parameter, which characterizes the magnetoelectric tensors of the bianisotropic slab, on LSM modes is analyzed--namely an increase in the bandwidth for monomodal operation is reported. In addition, a field displacement effect and a variable phase shift proportional to the change of the Ω-parameter are attained. Finally, it is shown that the propagation characteristics are independent of the direction of propagation and so, unlike the case of magnetically biased ferrite loading, reciprocal devices can be achieved.

Numerical simulations for the (3+1)-dimensional optical-field dynamics of nonstationary pulsed beams that propagate down Kerr-like nonlinear channel waveguides are carried out for what is to our knowledge the first time. Time-resolved intrapulse switching due to spontaneous symmetry breaking of optical fields from a quasilinear symmetric field to a nonlinear asymmetric field is analyzed. A novel instability phenomenon triggered by the symmetry breakdown is found.

Field distributions and energy flows of the surface waves excited in singlelayer-overcoated gratings are evaluated in order to investigate the behavior of the resonance absorption in the grating.