Effects of the Schottky impedance of wire contact points on the reflection properties of a mesh

In many space applications for reflector antennas, the reflector is made of flexible conducting mesh material. The wires used to construct the grids are plated over with highly conducting materials, such as gold or silver. However, even in these cases oxidation occurs at the contact points, forming an undesirable Schottky barrier. The conjugate gradient method, in conjunction with the fast Fourier transform, is used to solve the problem of scattering from such a grid structure. An internal impedance is utilized to account for the effects of the Schottky impedance at the contact points and the effects of the finite substrate conductivity. Calculated values of the reflection coefficient for different angles of wave incidence and polarizations show that the Schottky impedance affects the reflection properties of this type of mesh drastically. >