DESIGN OF HIGH POWER CAPACITY PHASE SHIFTER WITH COMPOSITE RIGHT/LEFT-HANDED TRANSMISSION LINE

Based on the structure of composite right/left-handed transmission line (CRLH-TL), a novel phase shifter with high power capacity is developed. A new and an accurate equivalent circuit of the CRLH-TL element is utilized and validated in the phase shifter design. Because the switches are incorporated on the fingers of the CRLH-TLs, the power going through a single switch is only a fraction of that through the entire phase shifter. As a result, the power handling capacity of the proposed phase shifter can be greatly increased. In addition, multiphase phase shifters can be realized with multiple switches incorporated in a single CRLH-TL element. A 4-bit phase shifter and a multiphase phase shifter are designed and tested. The power capacity of the multiphase phase shifter is measured to be higher than most of the conventional phase shifters. The presented phase shifter also possesses other advantages such as low cost, compact size and ease of fabrication. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:119-124, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26505