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MORE COMPLICATED ELEMENTS OF FEED LINES                                 429



            means that the section of cutoff WR is a storage of mostly magnetic energy ( >  ) and
                                                                             
                                                                                  
            thus  may play the role of inductor. Evidently,  such section can be converted into a shunt
            resonance contour by putting inside a capacitive element, for example, capacitive post of
            suitable sizes to reach the energy balance   =   at the desired resonance frequency as
                                                 
                                                       
            Figure 8.4.12 depicts. Unluckily, the described resonance occurs in the volume that is much
            smaller than the wavelength. In turn, it means the high concentration of EM energy in minor
            volume and excessive conductivity current density on WR wall and capacitive element surfaces
            at frequencies around the resonance. As a result, the evanescent resonators might have relatively
            low unloaded Q-factor in comparison  with classical in-line resonators, for example, but
            certainly higher than the resonance iris or post could deliver. If it is true, why do we really need
            them if they cannot rival with contemporary rectangular and circular waveguide cavity filters?
            The main advantage of evanescent filters is their wideband rejection of spurious and harmonic
            signals, sharp selectivity, compact size and low weight that is the critical issue for satellite and
            mobile application.

            One of the possible evanescent filter schematics is demonstrated in Figure 8.4.12a [20] . The
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            capacitive elements of cubical shape (blue dices) are symmetrically located on the upper and
            lower walls of WR. Their structure reminds the section of WR with double ridges (WRD in
            Figure 6.4.6 of Chapter 6). That is why they are sometimes called Evanescent Mode Ridge
            Waveguide Filters. The regular input and output WRs of standard dimension /2 <  <   and
             ≅ /2 are connected to the section of cutoff WR with diminished sizes such as    <  /2.
            The practical choice of    and    depends on how far from passband we desire to extend
            the filter spurious-free stopband. Evidently, the reduction in sizes suppresses high mode
            excitation and propagation as the frequency goes up but it certainly damages the passband
            performance increasing the dissipation.












             Figure 8.4.12 Evanescent filter: a) Schematic, b) Filter with open top, c) Passband frequency
              response magnitude [dB], d) Magnitude of passband + stopband frequency response [dB]


            For example, the filter in Figure 8.4.12b    = 0.195 and    = 0.333 and the stopband
            spreads up to 28.4 GHz with some spikes bellow -20dB. The measured insertion loss was 0.45
            dB, so that the filter Q-factor is nearly 2 800. Since the center frequency of passband is around
            7 GHz, such results can be regarded as impressive. The short sections of cutoff waveguide
            where  >   provide the inductive coupling between ridge resonators making such filter a
                        
                   
            close relative of the filter with inductive irises in Figure 8.4.7a. Note that the total physical
            length of filter (without the flanges) in Figure 8.4.12b is 73.62mm [20]. The space saving is at
            least two times in comparison with the classical WR filter like that shown in Figure 8.4.7a.




            24  Reprint with the authors’ permission.
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