State of the art of nonlinear transmission lines for applications in high power microwaves

Nonlinear transmission lines have been used with great success in pulse sharpening for obtaining output fast pulse rise times in nanosecond and picosecond ranges. Nowadays recent research on this field has shown a great prospect for RF generation using these devices in aerospace application such as in ultra-wide band radar for communications, remote sensing and surveillance due to less attenuation and electromagnetic interference. Also other important applications are envisioned in high power microwave sources for battlefield communication disruption and space vehicle systems as they can replace electronic tubes without the need of vacuum and heating. A nonlinear transmission line basically consists of a lumped LC line using a nonlinear element (variable inductance or capacitance) or a continuous transmission line using a nonlinear medium (ferroelectric or ferrimagnetic). In this paper the state of art for both configurations are discussed as well as their main characteristics and limitations.