Introduction To Modern Planar Transmission Lines. Anand K. Verma
(4.3), is a nonhomogeneous medium, where the relative permittivity εr(x) is a function of position x in discrete steps. The conductivity of a doped Si substrate is a function of the depth of penetration of the charged carrier, forming a continuously variable nonhomogeneous medium.
4.2.3 Isotropic and Anisotropic Medium
Inside the isotropic dielectric medium, the electric displacement vector
However, there are dielectrics, such as quartz, sapphire, alumina, MgO, and so forth, where
The relative permittivity and relative permeability of these anisotropic media are not scalar quantities. They are tensor quantity,
In general, elements of permittivity and permeability matrices could be complex quantities and also frequency‐dependent, accounting for the losses and dispersion in the material medium. Equation (4.2.4a) shows that for the anisotropic dielectric medium, the electric flux density
The above equations can be written in a more compact form as
(4.2.5)
The above permittivity and permeability matrices could be either symmetric or anti‐symmetric. Thus, the anisotropic materials could be divided into two broad groups: (i) symmetric anisotropic materials and (ii) anti‐symmetric anisotropic materials. The symmetric anisotropic materials support linearly polarized EM‐waves propagating as the normal modes of the homogeneous unbounded medium. However, circularly polarized EM‐waves are the normal modes of the anti‐symmetric anisotropic medium. The normal modes of media travel without any change in polarization.
Symmetric Anisotropic Materials
The complex permittivity matrix
(4.2.6)
In the above equation, the matrix elements
To describe an anisotropic medium, two sets of the coordinate systems are used: one set is for the crystal structure axes of the anisotropic medium; and another set is used for the physical axes of the line structure. Figure (4.4) shows the crystal axes (ξ, η, ς), i.e. (xi, eta, zeta), and the physical axes (x, y, z) of a microstrip line on an anisotropic substrate.
The crystal axes (ξ, η, ς) are rotated with respect to the physical axes (x, y, z) by the angles θ1, θ2, and θ3. The off‐diagonal elements of [εr] in equation (4.2.4) are present due to the nonalignment of two coordinate systems. However, if they are aligned, i.e. θ1 = θ2 = θ3 = 0, then the off‐diagonal elements of [εr] are zero; and the constitutive relation (4.2.4a) reduces to
(4.2.7)
The crystal axes (ξ, η, ς) are also known as the principal coordinate system of a material medium; and the diagonal relative permittivity components εrξ, εrη and εrζ are known as the principal relative permittivity components [B.1, B.3, B.10, B.12–B.14, B.24]. Normally, all relative permittivity components are positive quantities. However, it is possible to get one component as a negative quantity in the engineered composites that provide unique EM‐wave characteristics [J.1, J.2, B.16]. Along the principal axes, the components of the vector