Miniaturized Ring Coupler with Arbitrary Power Divisions Based on the Composite Right/Left-Handed Transmission Lines

A novel and miniaturized ring coupler capable of presenting arbitrary power divisions is proposed using the composite right/left-handed (CRLH) transmission lines. The unbalanced CRLH transmission lines that can be easily tailored to implement transmission lines of high or low Bloch impedance are applied to enhance the coupler´s capability of arbitrary power divisions. To support our idea, a ring coupler that offers a 6 dB power division ratio and occupies only 44% of the conventional footprint was experimentally realized. Experimental results agree well with the simulation data. The proposed CRLH configuration demonstrates an alternative for implementing a compact ring coupler with arbitrary power division ratios.