Theoretical aspects of calibration procedures in network analyzers for nonlinear one port devices

The authors discuss the theoretical aspects of the extension of the calibration techniques for network analyzers to the measurement of nonlinear devices. An examination of these theoretical aspects makes it possible to pinpoint the fundamental calibration problems that must be solved before the performance of nonlinear device measurements is comparable with the achieved performance of linear system measurements. It is shown that the calibration procedure for measuring nonlinear one-port devices with low- and high-frequency network analyzers can be reduced to a full linear calibration procedure and determination of a complex scaling factor. This scaling factor can be determined in two steps: amplitude and phase calibration. For the amplitude calibration, the use of a power meter, traceable to a standard, is sufficient. For the phase calibration, a phase reference is needed. This can be a known active device or a reference generator