Design of a high-performance balanced frequency tripler at 94GHz

This paper describes the design of a broadband, high-efficiency, fixed-tuned balanced tripler at W -band using a pair of United Monolithic Semiconductors (UMS) DBES105a GaAs Schottky barrier diodes. The circuit is mounted in a waveguide block that includes waveguide matching elements at the input and output frequencies. The circuit design, simulation and optimization of the tripler are carried out by using HFSS and ADS. The tripler is expected to work efficiently in the band 80-104GHz with a conversion loss less than 9 dB and output power greater than 10dBm when input power is 20dBm. The simulated multiplication efficiency reaches 17.9% at 84GHz, 16.0% at 94GHz and 9.7% at 104GHz. The tripler will be used to provide the LO signal for a sub-harmonically pumped mixer at 183GHz. And it will be used in water vapour radiometers as a tool for studying atmospheric conditions.