Harnessing Inter-Waveguide Evanescent Coupling in Pinching-Antenna Systems
In multi-waveguide pinching-antenna systems (PASS), waveguides are typically modeled as independent signal-transport paths. However, when dielectric waveguides are closely spaced, their evanescent electromagnetic fields overlap, allowing guided signals to exchange energy before radiation. While such inter-waveguide coupling is conventionally regarded as undesirable crosstalk, this paper reveals an opportunity to harness it as an additional analog beamforming resource. The key insight is that coupling, through its interaction with sequential signal extraction by distributed pinching antennas (PAs), can reshape coherent signal combining at the receivers without increasing the available signal power. Consequently, stronger coupling does not necessarily yield better performance; rather, the coupling-induced phase relationships determine whether the radiated signals combine constructively or destructively. To characterize and exploit this mechanism, we establish a physics-based end-to-end channel model, derive coupling-aware waveguide-spacing principles and achievable-rate bounds, and develop joint waveguide deployment, PA placement, and digital precoding algorithms for multi-hotspot communications. Numerical results demonstrate substantial sum-rate improvements over conventional fixed-deployment and optimized minimum-spacing PASS benchmarks. These findings establish inter-waveguide evanescent coupling as a new physical degree of freedom for PASS channel reconfiguration.