Radiation from a short vertical dipole in a metal-backed rod array

Based on an effective medium approach, we investigate the problem of radiation of a short vertical electric dipole embedded in a metal-backed dielectric rod array. We obtain the radiated electromagnetic field in the form of a Sommerfeld integral, and calculate the near and far electric fields for both lossless and lossy rod arrays. The characteristic equation for the guided modes is derived and solved. The guided modes are found to be slow waves and their propagation constants and modal distributions are extracted. All theoretical results are compared with full-wave simulations.