Past exam of the optics and electrodynamics course of the University of Cambridge / 2021 / Section A / A2 / a / Solution

The transmitting antenna is matched to its input transmission line, so its real terminal electrical resistance is $Z_i$. The identical receiving antenna has the same electrical impedance at the operating frequency. Its available received power for a matched load is the incident energy flux times its antenna effective area:The real receiving load is $Z_t$, so its voltage-wave reflection coefficient relative to $Z_i$ is ${\Gamma }_L=(Z_t-Z_i)/(Z_t+Z_i)$. The fraction of available power delivered to the output line isConsequently, neglecting path losses, mismatch of polarization of an electromagnetic wave and line losses,This is the Friis transmission equation with a receiving impedance-mismatch factor. For fixed $P_i,G_a,d,Z_i,Z_t$, it scales as ${\lambda }^2$. That scaling is conditional on holding antenna gain fixed: a fixed physical aperture can instead have $G_a\propto {\lambda }^{-2}$, and any wavelength dependence of the impedances also enters the expression. The matched-output check $Z_t=Z_i$ gives $P_t=P_i\mathcal{F}$.