Rectangular waveguide enabling technology using holey surfaces and wire media metamaterials

• We present a novel low cost enabling technology for realizing real-time tunable components/circuits.
• High-Q light/gas permeable sensor applications.
• Tunability of high-Q sensor is demonstrated.
• Simple manufacturing and tuning of high-Q devices are presented.

A new enabling technology for implementing tunable rectangular waveguide components and circuits is reported for the first time with the use of 2D and 3D metamaterials; a holey metal surface and wire media, respectively. Traditional solid metal irises are replaced by a wire medium metamaterial. These media are well known and used to emulate plasma behavior and, therefore, can be used to replace solid metal. As proof of concepts, results for tunable rectangular waveguide filters are presented with the use of pin block inductive irises and capacitive posts. Furthermore, by adapting the traditional metal-pipe rectangular waveguide for tunability, regions of the solid metal walls are replaced by holey metasurfaces that enable adjustments in the position and spacing of the pin blocks. Prototype tunable structures were measured for verification and good agreement is achieved between full-wave simulations and measurements. The results clearly demonstrate the potential for this tunable/reconfigurable rectangular waveguide enabling technology. Potentially new applications for this permeable enabling technology include lightweight and forced-air/cryogenically cooled subsystems, gas/vapor/humidity/pressure/light sensors, optoelectronic and even real-time tunable/reconfigurable components, circuits and subsystems.