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Planar doped barrier devices for subharmonic mixers
Author(s) -
Lee T. H.,
East J. R.,
Haddad G. I.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
microwave and optical technology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.304
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1098-2760
pISSN - 0895-2477
DOI - 10.1002/mop.4650040115
Subject(s) - harmonic mixer , electronic mixer , schottky diode , parasitic extraction , terahertz radiation , planar , diode , optoelectronics , subharmonic , intermediate frequency , electronic engineering , materials science , radio frequency , electrical engineering , extremely high frequency , local oscillator , engineering , computer science , telecommunications , physics , computer graphics (images) , nonlinear system , quantum mechanics
Mixers are a critical component of most millimeter‐wave and terahertz systems. Often, the front‐end mixer performance determines the overall system performance. At higher millimeter‐wave and terahertz frequencies, mixer performance can be limited by the lack of low‐cost solid‐state sources. A subharmonic mixer with a pumping frequency at half the signal frequency would reduce the source power requirements at these higher frequencies. Typical subharmonic mixers use back‐to‐back Schottky barrier diodes. The resulting structures are difficult to fabricate. The performance can be degraded by unmatched diodes or by parasitics associated with the various connections. One possible solution is to use an integrated Schottky barrier structure. Another possible solution is to use a planar doped barrier (PDB) as a single‐device subharmonic mixer. This article presents an analysis of PDB subharmonic mixer performance.