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A unilateral tunnel-diode frequency converter

University of British Columbia

Frequency converters using pumped nonlinear conductance and pumped nonlinear capacitance with the property of signal flow in one direction only are the subject of this thesis. The unilateral property can be obtained either by a suitable termination at the image frequency or by quadrature pumping the conductance and capacitance. Of great importance is a frequency converter in which the output frequency is lower than that of the input. Such a down—converter based upon a proposed image termination method is examined both analytically and experimentally. Conditions are given which the conductance and capacitance must satisfy in order that the image termination be passive. The conditions are fulfilled by a single tunnel—diode. It is found that a forward- to reverse-gain ratio of at least 20 db over a 5% bandwidth is feasible; the estimated noise figure is 3.4 db. The quadrature pumped converter is compared with the image terminated converter and it is shown in particular that the former can be unilateral only at one frequency.

Text

2011-11-28

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/39312

Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of British Columbia

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