Numerical Evaluation of Electromagnetic-wave Penetration at Normal Incidence through an Inhomogeneous-wave Approach

This paper presents numerical scenarios concerning penetration in a lossy medium that can be obtained by radiating inhomogeneous electromagnetic waves. Former papers approached this problem, both analytically and numerically, finding requirements and limits of the so-called “deeppenetration” condition, which consists of a wave transmitted in a lossy medium having an attenuation vector whose direction forms the angle of ninety degrees with the normal to the separation surface. The deep-penetration condition always requires an oblique incidence, therefore is not practical in many applications. For this reason, we are interested here in finding whether an inhomogeneous wave guarantees larger penetration than the one obtainable with homogeneous waves, even when the incident wave is normal to the separation surface between two media, i.e. when the deep-penetration condition is not satisfied. We are also interested in verifying numerically whether the lossy-prism structure may achieve larger penetration than the one obtainable through traditional leakywave antennas, and we also wish to propose a lossy-prism design more realistic than the one previously presented in the