Compact, Low-Loss, Wideband, and High-Power Handling Phase Shifters With Piezoelectric Transducer-Controlled Metallic Perturber

Compact phase shifters with large phase shift, low loss, and high-power-handling capability are desired for a variety of applications. In this paper, a new type of compact meander line phase shifter with metallic perturber controlled by a piezoelectric transducer (PET) has been designed, fabricated, and tested. The new phase-shifter design led to a large phase shift of 360° with a control voltage of 50 V at 3.5 GHz, a low insertion loss of 1 ~ 3 dB, a wide range of operation frequency of 1 ~ 6 GHz, a high-power-handling capability beyond 30 dBm on a compact meander line of 18 mm × 18 mm, compared with similar phase shifters with a dielectric perturber which exhibited very limited phase shift at the S-band. In addition, this is a low-cost phase-shifter design that is extendable to the W -band and beyond. Combined with a low loss, large phase shift, compact size, and a high-power-handling capability, the new meander line phase shifter with PET-controlled metallic perturber showed great potential to be used in different RF/microwave systems.