Dispersion analysis of double-sided open periodic media using inhomogeneous plane wave excitation

Double-sided open periodic structures are analyzed using inhomogeneous plane wave scattering. The leaky and surface wave modes of several unit cells of different structures are computed using the poles of generalized reflection and transmission coefficients of inhomogeneous plane waves in the spectral domain. It is shown that the reflection and transmission coefficients of the zeroth order Floquet mode contain the poles of the Green's function of the complex stratified periodic structure. The properties of evanescent mode amplification as well as super resolution near field imaging in a wire medium are addressed. A balanced leaky wave antenna unit cell with double-sided radiation feature is introduced and it is shown that, in contrast to grounded structures, total absorption in lossless non-chiral double-sided open unit cells is not feasible as long as the behavior of the unit cell is well described by its fundamental mode.