Student-led tutorials 5EPB0 ‘EM II’

SLT-H

June 20th 2023

Philosophy (warning: contains spoilers)

1. You are on your way to becoming an electromagnetics expert. A disadvantage of this
level of expertise is that it seriously takes the fun out of watching TV. You might have
noticed that electromagnetics, due to its complexity and the invisible waves that can
have widespread effects on their surroundings, is often used as a plot device in especially
science-fiction series. Here is a list of descriptions of movies in which EM plays a role.
State for each case whether the situation described would be feasible from a physical
point of view, it is exaggerated or is just non-physical.
(a) In many episodes, the Star trek characters use Phasers. According to the Star
Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, phasers are named for PHASed En-
ergy Rectification - a description that matches the workings of a laser pulse as well.
Hence, could you theoretically stun or kill with a powerful EM beam or laser?

(b) In the Fringe episode “Power hungry”, the human body is described as an electro-
magnetic machine due to brain and muscle activity. These fields are amplified in a
certain person, and he starts radiating powerful fields. Electronics around him go
haywire and people in his vicinity are electrocuted. Is this possible?

(c) In Breaking Bad episode “Live Free or Die”, the semi-sympathetic Walter White
and colleagues destroy the hard drive of a laptop that contains movies incriminating
them. From a distance of tens of meters, they wipe the computer inside a police-
guarded storage unit by using a gigantic electromagnet. Feasible or myth?

(d) The Delorean from “Back to the future” uses a Flux Capacitor to travel through
time. The name of this device implies it is able to store magnetic flux. Can this be
done?

(e) In the movie “Pacific Rim”, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is used to try to take
out two fighting robots. The EMP only succeeds to disable one - the older robot is

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 immune to EMP pulses due to its analog electronics opposed to the new digitally-
based fighter. Is this true?

Finite length dipole

I(z)
y
x

Figure 1: View of a finite length dipole excited with a sinusoidal current.

2. In this course, infinitesimally small electric and magnetic dipoles are considered, i.e.
point dipoles, where the exciting currents are uniform along the antenna. But of course,
not every antenna is that small. In a lengthy antenna, the currents are no longer the
same at any point in the structure, but follow a distribution. The effects this has on the
radiation patterns are determined in this question.
A finite length dipole of length ℓ is oriented in the z-direction and fed at the origin by a
sinusoidal current with amplitude I0 . Hence, the current is now position-dependent, as
can be seen in Figure 1. It can be shown [1] that the far magnetic field in the far field
is equal to
−jI0 exp(−jkr)[cos(k 2ℓ cos(θ) − cos(k 2ℓ ))]
H FF (r, ω) = aφ . (1)
2πr sin(θ)
(a) Prove that the electric far field is equal to
−jI0 Z exp(−jkr)[cos(k 2ℓ cos(θ)) − cos(k 2ℓ )]
E FF (r, ω) = aθ . (2)
2πr sin(θ)
Hint: Remember that in the far field, only the dominant components of E remain.

(b) Determine the complex Poynting vector.

(c) The radiation resistance of a finite length dipole can be proven to increase with
an order 4 with antenna length Rr ∼ ℓ4 [1]. Explain what the radiation resistance
represents and whether such an increase is desired.

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 (d) Sketch/plot the radiation pattern for ℓ = 0.5λ and for ℓ = 1.5λ in the xy-plane
and the xz-plane (e.g. using Matlab’s polarplot function). You can normalize each
separate radiation pattern to its maximum for easy comparison. Compare the ra-
diation patterns with each other and with the pattern of an electric point dipole
(also normalized). What do you notice? Explain.

The Microwave Oven: The waveguide

3. One of the most well-known applications of EM in the kitchen is the Microwave Oven.
Although experiments had been done before, the microwave oven as we know originated
from the development of short-range military radar. The accidental discovery can be
described as:
One day, Percy Spencer was visiting a lab where magnetrons, the power tubes of radar
sets, were being tested. Suddenly, he felt a peanut bar start to melt in his pocket. Other
scientists had noticed this phenomenon as well, but Spencer itched to know more about
it. He sent a boy out for a package of popcorn. When he held it near a magnetron,
popcorn exploded all over the lab. Next morning he brought in a kettle, cut a hole in the
side and put an uncooked egg (in its shell) into the pot. Then he moved a magnetron
against the hole and turned on the juice. A skeptical engineer peeked over the top of
the pot just in time to catch a face-full of cooked egg. The reason? The yolk cooked
faster than the outside, causing the egg to burst.
Today, the insides of a simplified microwave oven looks like Fig. 2. The magnetron
generates a high power microwave and these are guided into the oven (i.e. the cavity
resonator) via a waveguide.

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 Figure 2: Inside Microwave Oven.

Let’s start in this exercise with the analysis of the waveguide. The waveguide is a WR-
340 waveguide presented with a frequency of 2.45 GHz and you can consider the walls
to be perfect electric conductors. The waveguide is excited with a TE10 mode.
(a) Why do TEM waves not propagate in a rectangular waveguide as they do in a
parallel-plate waveguide?
(b) Assuming that the wave propagates in the +z direction, the equation for the mag-
netic field is defined as
( mπ ) ( pπ )
Hz (x, y, z) = C cos x cos y exp[−γz]
d d
Find the electric field components of the TE10 mode.

(c) Plot a curve for the real part of the surface charge density ρs induced in the bottom
wall y = 0 at x = d/2 and γz = [0; π]. You can assume a real-valued constant C.
(d) What is the bandwidth of the waveguide? The dimensions of a waveguide are stan-
dardized and can be found in, for example, https://www.everythingrf.com/tech-
resources/waveguides-sizes.

The Microwave Oven: The cavity

4. Now that we have covered the waveguide, we can move on to the cavity. A cavity
resonator has dimensions a, b and c and it can be considered as a rectangular waveguide

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 with both terminations short-circuited. We identify

Ez = [Ax sin(κm x) + Bx cos(κm x)][Ay sin(κn y) + By cos(κn y)][Az sin(κp z) + Bz cos(κp z)]

as the fundamental unknown.

(a) Apply proper boundary conditions in order to obtain Bx , By , Az , κm , κn and κm .
(b) Find all the field components for the TM modes.
(c) Find rules for the possible values of m, n, and p.
(d) Older microwave ovens make use of a turntable, what is their function and how is
the same achieved in modern microwave ovens?

The cavity resonator II

5. In question 4, you have derived the TM modes in a cavity resonator. In the course
material, the TE modes were given together with the rules for possible values of m, n,
and p.
(a) Write a code that receives the dimensions of a rectangular cavity, a, b, and c and cal-
culates the resonance frequency of the first modes excited below a certain frequency
f . Note: the code must consider both families of modes, TE and TM.
(b) Write a code that counts the cumulative number of excited modes in a cavity as a
function of frequency. Plot the number of excited modes as a “staircase” plot and
confront it to a famous approximation for it, called “Weyl’s formula”:
( )3
8πV f
N (f ) =
3 c0

where V is the volume of the cavity, f is the frequency and c0 is the speed of light
in vacuum.
(c) Write a code that calculates the difference in frequency between two consecutive
resonant modes (of either family) in a rectangular cavity resonator. The code must
plot the histogram of these differences. Investigate different aspect ratios for cavities
and its influence on the shape of the histogram.
(d) Bonus question: confront the obtained histogram with two probability density func-
tions: the exponential and the Rayleigh distribution. Which of these two seems to
represent the distribution of the differences better?1
1
This exercise starts to belong to a fascinating topic about wave chaos in resonant enclosures. If you’re
curious about it and want to know more, contact the lecturer.

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Figure 3: A prism made of paraffin wax is illuminated by microwaves. Will TIR occur?

(Frustrated) Total Internal Reflection

6. Total internal reflection (TIR) is one intriguing phenomena which has a myriad of fas-
cinating applications. Let’s have a look at it and see if we can measure some of its
effects. Consider a right prism made of paraffin wax (εr = 2.3, µr = 1). The prism has a
triangular base with angles 45◦ , 45◦ , and 90◦ . A microwave transmitter at f = 10 GHz
illuminates one of the sides of the prism. One receiver is located at the hypotenuse side
of the prism (receiver 1) and a second receiver is located at the other side of the prism
(receiver 2), like is depicted in Fig. 3.
(a) Calculate the critical angle in the prism-air interface (the hypotenuse).
(b) Determine which of the two receivers will measure a signal. Justify your answer.

(c) A second prism of identical properties is brought next to the original one, according
to the schematic in Fig. 4. The two hypotenuses are separated a distance d between
them. Make a plot of the relative amplitude of the electric field at the microwave
receiver (relative to the amplitude of the field received at the receiver for no gap,
i.e. |Er (d)| = |E(d)|/|E(d = 0)|)) as a function of d.

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 Figure 4: Two prisms trying to frustrate TIR

References
[1] https://photonics101.com/radiation-and-antennas/
finite-dipole-half-wavelength-full-wavelength-double-wavelength#
show-solution

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