Simple Broadband Circular Polarizer in Oversized Waveguide

In this paper, a possibility is shown to realize a simple waveguide polarizer producing nearly the same circular polarization over a broad frequency range up to an octave. It is based upon the combination of two smoothly squeezed oversized waveguides with different diameters. The principle is similar to an achromatic lens in optics, where two counteracting lenses with differently sloped wavelength dependencies of the refractive index are combined to compensate the dispersion in the desired wavelength range. Consequently, two different wavelengths of light are brought into focus at the same plane. A waveguide for the transmission of microwaves has a similar frequency dependence of the refractive index resulting in a frequency-dependent phase shift between two propagating waves polarized along the symmetry axes of a waveguide with an elliptical cross section. For this reason, an incident wave with a linear polarization between the axes of symmetry can be only converted into a circularly polarized wave over a limited frequency range. However, the diameter and the shape along two counteracting squeezed waveguides can be adjusted in such a way that the frequency dependence of the resultant phase shift is finally canceled out.