Micromechanical mixer and filters

A device comprised of interlinked micromechanical resonators with capacitive mixer transducers has been demonstrated to perform both low-loss frequency translation (i.e. mixing) and highly selective filtering of applied electrical input signals. In particular, successful down-conversion of radio frequency (RF) signals from 40-200 MHz and subsequent filtering at a 27 MHz intermediate frequency (IF) with less than 15 dB of combined mixing conversion and filter insertion loss is demonstrated using this single, micromechanical device. Mixing conversion gain/loss is shown to depend upon a ratio of local oscillator amplitude and applied bias voltages. A single-sideband (SSB) noise figure of 18 dB is achieved.