2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

A TM01 to TE11 Mode Converter Designed with

Semicircular Waveguide Sections
Ashish Chittora1,2, Sandeep Singh3, Archana Sharma3, Jayanta Mukherjee1
1
Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai-400076, India
2
School of Technology, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar-382007, India
3
Accelerator and Pulse Power Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai-400085, India
Email: [email protected]

Abstract— A novel TM01 to TE11 mode converter with conversion. Concept of metallic photonic crystal is also used
aligned ports, wide bandwidth and high conversion in [8] to provide the phase shift for mode conversion. In [9],
efficiency is proposed. Mode conversion is performed with rectangular waveguide sections of different path length
a circular waveguide partitioned into two semicircular provide the necessary phase shift for the mode conversion.
sections with different path length. Lower semicircular Dielectric loading is also reported in [10]-[11], to provide the
section has a cosine profile to provide a path difference of
λg/2 for the mode conversion. Mode converter was designed phase shift for the mode conversion. In [12], tapered metallic
and simulated at 3GHz operating frequency. Electric field baffle is introduced for TM01-TE11Y mode conversion with
calculation shows that the mode converter can handle upto additional capability to transmit TE11X polarized mode. In next
3 GW high power microwave signal. The mode converter section design principle and analysis of the proposed mode
was fabricated and the mode conversion was verified converter is presented.
experimentally, by measuring farfield radiation pattern of
the output mode. The proposed mode converter has a II. DESIGN AND CONFIGURATION
symmetric structure and has the advantage of aligned
ports and wide bandwidth. The TM01 mode pattern consists of radially diverging
electric field. When TM01 mode enters in a circular waveguide
I. INTRODUCTION (CWG) partitioned in semicircular waveguides (SWG), it

I n recent times, high power microwave (HPM) systems are converts to out of phase SWG TE11 modes in upper and lower
gaining importance both in strategic as well as in SWGs [14]. If a phase shift of 1800 is introduced in the lower
commercial applications. HPM systems may consist of an SWG with respect to the upper SWG TE11 mode, they meet in
HPM source, a waveguide mode converter and an antenna to phase at the other end. Finally combining the SWGs again into
project the microwave power in free space. For most of the CWG at the output end, transforms the in-phase SWG TE11
HPM sources, output power is in the form of TM01 mode of mode components into CWG TE11 like mode pattern. The
the circular waveguide [1]. The main disadvantage of TM01 phase shift of 1800 can be provided by path difference equal to
mode is that it is not useful for direct radiation. The radiation half of the guide wavelength.
pattern contains null at the axis and therefore at the target, no
or minimum power is received. Even in the off axis region, the β (l2 − l1 ) = π (1)
power received is very less due to the divergent beam. On the π
other hand TE11 mode is the fundamental mode of circular l2 = l1 + (2)
β
waveguide and maximum power is concentrated on the axis.
Therefore, a mode converter which can convert TM01 mode to λg
l2 = l1 + (3)
TE11 mode is required between source and antenna, so that the 2
output power of the HPM source can be radiated efficiently.
Conventional TM01 to TE11 mode converters are dual bent Where, l1 and l2 are the length of upper (straight) and lower
(or S-shape) circular waveguides [2]. In such design the input (curved) semicircular waveguide sections respectively as
and output ports are not aligned on the same axis. The shown in Fig. 1. λg is the guide wavelength of SWG TE11
fabrication is also difficult with the required precision. Due to mode [15]. Length l1 can be taken as integer multiple of half
the disadvantages of conventional mode converters, linear-axis of the guide wavelength (l1= k λg/2). Then l2 can be calculated
mode converters are practically more important. Many of the from the following relation:
mode converters are reported in the existing literature with
linear axis, which utilize intermediate modes (e.g. TEM and λg
TE10 [3], sectoral waveguide modes [4]-[7]) for the mode l2 = (k + 1) (4)
2

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 2017 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EUCAP)

Fig. 1. Schematic of the proposed mode converter.

Where, k is a positive integer. For the ease of physical

realization, value of k is taken atleast greater than or equal to
five (k>=5). The profile of lower semicircular waveguide is to
be deigned such that it’s both ends meet smoothly with the
ends of the upper semicircular waveguide. Cosine profile is Fig. 2. Conversion efficiency for the proposed mode converter (l1 = 33.25cm
and l2 = 39.84cm) with TM01 mode as input.
the most favorable profile for this purpose and designed
according to the following relation:

x l l
y = − A cos(2π ) Where, − 1 ≤ x ≤ 1 (5)
l1 2 2

This makes it easy to join the mode converter ends with the
hollow circular waveguides at the previous (source side) and
next (horn antenna) stage of HPM system. Length of the lower
semicircular waveguide profile l2 can be calculated Fig. 3. Propagation of electric field for 3 GW input signal as TM01 mode.
numerically such that (4) and (5) could be satisfied.
handle HPM signal up to 3 GW.
III. SIMULATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS A comparison is also presented with the existing linear
Design parameters of the proposed mode converter are shape mode converter designs in Table II. Designs which
calculated as shown in Table I, and mode converter is involve dielectric [3], [10]-[11] have power handling
designed and simulated in CST Microwave studio. capability smaller than purely metallic designs. Among the
Comparable mode conversion bandwidth of 9.5% to 12.0% is designs with purely metallic structure [4]-[9], [12], the
observed for different values of k at the operating frequency of proposed design is easy to fabricate and can handle higher
3 GHz. Simulated results for mode converter designed with power levels. This design is superior to authors’ previous
k=5, are shown in Fig. 2 for conversion efficiency of TM01 to works [11]-[13] in terms of power handling capability and
mode to other modes. have bandwidth higher than as reported in [8].

TABLE II. Comparison of TM01-TE11mode converters with metallic structure

TABLE I. Mode converter design parameters with different k values
and aligned ports
k l1=kλg/2 l2 =(k+1)λg/2 A Bandwidth Length Diameter High power
Paper Bandwidth
λ λ capability
5 33.25 39.84 5.00 2.97-3.31 GHz (344 MHz)
Yuan et al. [4] 2.53 1.14 10.0% GW level
6 39.60 46.30 5.50 2.93-3.22 GHz (287 MHz)
Yuan et al. [5] 4.67 1.73 12.5% -
7 46.55 53.14 5.90 2.90-3.22 GHz (327 MHz)
Yuan et al. [6] 2.06 1.02 Narrowband 2.40 GW
8 53.20 59.79 6.25 2.88-3.25 GHz (368 MHz)
Yuan et al. [7] 2.95 1.06 11.7% -
Wang et al. [8] 1.20 1.16 4.1% 4.05 GW
Electric field calculations are performed to verify high Peng et al. [9] - 1.01 18.6% 1.75 GW
power capability of the mode converter. Maximum E-field Chittora et al. [12] 2.32 0.96 9.1% 1.00 GW
does not exceed 741 kV/cm for 3 GW input of the TM01 mode, This paper (k=5) 3.32 0.90 10.8% 3.00 GW
as shown in Fig. 3. Maximum E-field is observed at the
junction where the circular waveguide divides into two The mode converter is fabricated and low power
semicircular waveguides. It proves that maximum E-field experiments are performed. It requires the excitation of TM01
remains sufficiently below the breakdown limit 1 MV/cm on mode at the input port of the mode converter, in the design
metal surface [16]-[17] and the mode converter is capable to band with high efficiency. Therefore, a TM01 mode feed is

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designed which consists of a conical monopole with inverted

cone [18] as shown in Fig. 4(a). The simulated and measured
S-parameters of the designed feed are shown in Fig. 4(b). The
designed feed converts coaxial-TEM mode to circular
waveguide TM01 mode with high efficiency (>90%) over 2.8-
3.8 GHz bandwidth. TM01 mode feed is applied at the input
port of the mode converter. First the reflection coefficient is
measured at the input port with Vector Network Analyzer.
Measured reflection coefficient remains below -10 dB in the
bandwidth of mode conversion as shown in Fig. 5 and is in
well agreement with the simulated result.
Mode conversion is verified by measuring the far field
radiation pattern of the converter output in an anechoic Fig. 6. Fabricated mode converter and radiation pattern measurement setup.
chamber as shown in Fig. 6. First the TM01 mode is excited at
the input port of a horn antenna, results in a radiation pattern
having null at the centre as shown in Fig. 7. Same experiment
is performed with the mode converter between horn antenna

Fig. 7. Measured radiation patterns at 3 GHz with TM01 mode excitation at

input port with and without mode converter section.

and the TM01 mode feed. In this case maximum is observed at

the centre of the measured radiation pattern. TE11 mode
pattern consists of a maximum at the centre of the pattern;
therefore it is verified from Fig. 7 that the desired mode
conversion is achieved.

IV. CONCLUSION
As conclusion, a circular waveguide mode converter to
Fig. 4. (a) Monocone (with inverted cone on top) feed designed for TM01 convert TM01 to TE11 mode, with aligned ports is presented in
mode excitation and (b) corresponding simulated and measured S-parameters. this paper. Efficiency for TM01 to TE11 mode conversion is
more than 90% for 2.97-3.31 GHz which corresponds to
10.8% bandwidth. Other advantages are compact (33.25 cm
length) structure with aligned ports and high power (GW
level) handling capability upto 3 GW. These advantages
makes the proposed mode converter useful for S-band HPM
applications.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors would like to acknowledge the financial support to
the project by Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences, DAE
India. Authors are also thankful to Dr. V. Shrimali and Mr.
Krishna R. Ranjan for providing facility for the measurement
Fig. 5. Simulated and measured reflection at the input port of the mode at GBPEC, Delhi.
converter with TM01 mode excitation.

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