A Study on the Physical Characteristics and Development of Plasma Reflectors

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Telecommunication Research Group, Aerospace Systems Research Institute, Aerospace Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

2 PhD student, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

3 Researcher, Imam Hossein University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In this paper, the physical characteristics of a plasma reflector are investigated. It is observed
that the frequency and angle of the incident electromagnetic waves and also the physical
parameters of the plasma affect the characteristics of the plasma reflector. The analytical
analysis show that a plasma reflector behaves like a high-pass filter whose cut-off frequency is a
function of the plasma frequency and the angle of the incident electromagnetic wave. The
amount of loss in this filter can be controlled by the plasma pressure and also the thickness of
the reflector. It is possible to turn this filter on and off by energizing/de-energizing the plasma.
In the case of the de-energized filter, the electromagnetic waves pass through it with a partial
loss. In this research commercial off-the-shelf dielectric tubes which are cheap and available are
used to implement the concept, and various feasible arrangements, for the implemetation of the
reflectors with cylindrical dielectric tubes (equivalent to commercial plasma containers) are
investigated. The simulation results show that using two tublar layers perpendicular to each
other, is the most efficient structure for the plasma reflector.

Keywords


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