A novel structure is investigated for the improvement of tri-plate line (TP
L) performance, Based on experience in the design of horn antennas, we intr
oduce corrugations of the transition section of the TPL in order to achieve
better field uniformity and to reduce the return loss. A corrugated transi
tion waveguide may be viewed as the cascade of bifurcated metal waveguides,
We employed the building-block approach, which breaks the overall structur
e into cascaded subcells, each of which may be analyzed rigorously by the m
ode-matching method. Thus, the input-output relation of each subcell is obt
ained as well as that of the overall structure, This enables us to carry ou
t a parametric study on the held distribution inside the TPL test fixture,
so that we can optimize its design for any required specifications.