Electric and magnetic pressure cancellation in a matched TEM line Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
In a matched lossless parallel-plate transmission line, a single travelling wave obeys . The electric attraction per unit length is ; each plate feels the field of the other plate, excluding its self-field. Opposite sheet currents give magnetic repulsion . Substituting the travelling-wave impedance proves their equality, so the ideal net transverse electromagnetic force is zero at every phase. A standing wave or independent voltage and current need not have this cancellation.
The fundamental mode of an ideal coaxial cable is a transverse electromagnetic mode: the electric field is radial between the conductors, the magnetic field is azimuthal, and energy flows along the cable through the dielectric. There is no cutoff for this mode; higher modes, conductor losses and dielectric dispersion can matter outside the ideal transmission-line regime.
Ignoring edge fields in the parallel-strip geometry, and . Per unit length the charge is and the linked magnetic flux is . Thus the parallel-plate transmission line has
For a segment , charge conservation, equivalently the appropriate integral of the Ampère-Maxwell equation, gives . Applying Faraday's law around a longitudinal rectangle between the plates gives . These are the lossless telegrapher's equations,
Differentiate the second with respect to and use the first, and conversely for :
The signal speed is , equal to for a vacuum-filled line. It is the speed of the coupled electromagnetic disturbance, rather than the electron drift velocity. Electrons locally adjust their motion as the field arrives; one electron need not travel the cable's length to transmit a signal. The Poynting vector in the dielectric integrates to power .
For distributed inductance and capacitance , a small segment obeys and . Differentiation gives and . For a forward wave,
A backward voltage wave has current . This sign matters at an impedance discontinuity.
The source figure is the stacked-strip parallel-plate transmission line geometry, despite its use of the word coplanar. Gauss's law gives . Opposite surface currents give magnetic field between the strips by Ampère's law; the magnetic flux per unit length is , hence . Therefore
No numerical is given; the impedance is appropriately left in terms of that ratio. The line is taken to be nonmagnetic and lossless.
Increasing the gap by changes to and to , so while is unchanged. voltage and current continuity at the step give
Consequently the voltage and energy-flux transmission coefficients are
Here amplitudes are peak voltage amplitudes, with mean power . The reciprocal gaps have : equal reflected energy but opposite voltage phase. A voltage transmission coefficient above one does not imply energy gain.
For a finite impedance section of a transmission line, put and . Multiple reflections inside the altered section interfere. Summing their geometric series, relative to the first boundary,
Transmission is unity at and minimal at , with minima . Resonances are separated by ; the long-wavelength limit also transmits fully. Matching the far termination removes end echoes, not the two internal reflections.
Figure 1.
Original calculated power transmission through a finite changed-impedance section between matched lines
. Details.
Distributed line parameters. The geometry is the wide parallel-plate transmission line described in the question, with absolute permittivity . A length has charge and field , giving
The opposed plate currents have sheet density and confine the leading magnetic field between the plates. The magnetic energy per unit length is , so
Here and are per unit length, in and , not lumped component values. Internal conductor fields and edge corrections are neglected.
Voltage and current evolution. The current entering a short length minus that leaving it is the rate of increase of its plate charge:
The voltage drop across that length is its inductive drop, . Dividing by gives the lossless Telegrapher's equations,
Propagation speed. Differentiate these equations once more and eliminate the other variable:
The wave equation speed is
Travelling-wave impedance. For a forward wave , take . Substitution into gives , hence the characteristic impedance
The backward-wave current has the opposite sign relative to its voltage; the fixed ratio above applies to one travelling direction.
Matching the antenna. The voltage reflection coefficient is . No reflection requires . With , , and ,
The resulting is consistent with the wide-plate approximation.
Both transverse forces. The matched transverse electromagnetic mode has electric attraction and magnetic repulsion. For time-averaged power ,
The force on one plate excludes its own field. Thus the average electric attraction and magnetic repulsion per unit length are respectively
The electric and magnetic pressure cancellation in a matched TEM line follows directly from :
The equality also holds instantaneously for a single travelling wave. Quoting either alone would omit the opposing contribution. This is the ideal electromagnetic force in the stated lossless uniform-dielectric model; a standing wave would not generally have the same cancellation.