Review article
https://doi.org/10.21857/y26kecd7x9
Surface electromagnetics: Development, modeling and applications
Zvonimir Šipuš
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
Marko Bosiljevac
orcid.org/0000-0001-8065-7376
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
Davorin Mikulić
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
Abstract
Ideal boundary conditions are widely used in most electromagnetic solvers to approximate the behavior of actual surfaces or materials. For example, it is common to replace metal conductors with perfect electric conductors (PECs), thus greatly simplifying computational requirements. Perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) boundary condition is also often used in the first stage of electromagnetic simulations, even though magnetic conductors at microwave frequencies do not exist in nature. The reason is that some artificial surfaces exhibit magnetic conducting properties in certain frequency bands. Furthermore, many other artificial surface types, in addition to the ones mentioned above, have emerged over the recent years, and are commonly used in various applications. This paper provides an overview of surface electromagnetics, a broad concept that refers to a wide range of electromagnetic surfaces, beginning with the simplest canonical uniform surfaces and progressing to more complex structures. It explores the development and applications of canonical electromagnetic surfaces for microwave applications, demonstrating their ability to enhance guiding and radiation properties. This includes in particular the coupling between different parts of the considered component and the control of antenna radiation properties, such as beam direction, beamwidth, sidelobe level and polarization. The paper further discusses theoretical models that can be used in the initial stage of the design in which the considered structure is modelled using canonical EM surfaces. Surface electromagnetics has been shown to be a versatile, robust, and cost-effective solution for the design of the next-generation EM components, allowing full customization of component properties.
Keywords
surface electromagnetics; canonical electromagnetics surfaces; soft surfaces; hard surfaces; electromagnetic band-gap structures; gap-waveguide technology; metasurfaces; transverse resonant method; equivalence principle; microwave holograms
Hrčak ID:
343851
URI
Publication date:
27.1.2026.
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