Influence of the power-consumption at non-fundamental frequency on Passive intermodulation generation

In this paper, the influence of the power-consumption at non-fundamental frequency on Passive Intermodulation generation is investigated. It is shown that nonlinear coefficients depend on the total power including the power of non-fundamental frequency, and the power-consumption at non-fundamental frequency affects PIM generation. Through a comparison of two types of PIM-sources characterized by different mechanism such as plated coaxial connectors and diodes, it is also shown that the power dependence of a₃ is dominant in plated connector while the higher order PIM in multi-tone tests affects the 3^rd PIM level in 2-tone tests when PIM-source is a diode-like junction.