Coplanar Intermodulation Reference Generator Using Substrate Integrated Waveguide With Integrated Artificial Nonlinear Dipole

An intermodulation (IM) generator based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) is demonstrated. This generator has maximal 80 dB dynamic range with a size that is smaller than 65 mm x 40 mm x 1.5 mm. A biased Schottky diode is mounted onto the slotted plane of SIW and it consists of a nonlinear dipole to radiate nonlinear signal to the carrier domain and serve as reference signal. A polarized slot helps focus the linear carrier wave onto the diode and construct a bias-controlled IM distortion. The experiment proves that this device can generate the IM3 reference ranges from - 112 to - 32 dBm at 2 x 43 dBm, while its minimum step can reach lesser than 0.5 dB. This proposed device can serve as tunable IM standards in PIM test and calibrate the commercial PIM tester.