Microwave antenna component based on a topologically protected meta-waveguide for routing LHCP and RHCP signals

The huge demand of increasing of the telecommunication systems capacity is requiring more and more the exploitation of novel physics phenomena for realizing microwave components and devices with enhanced functionalities. In this contribution, we exploit the topologically protected propagation in a meta-waveguide to realize an antenna system able to route the received circularly polarized (CP) signals with opposite handedness towards two different ports. In practice, the routing ability of topologically protected waveguide is used as an ortho-mode transducer for the CP signals received by the antenna. It is realized by pulling two periodic arrays of properly designed metallic cylinders, which emulate the spin-orbit interaction through bi-anisotropy. At the interface between the two arrays, a topologically protected surface wave can unidirectionally propagate according to its polarization state.