Single balanced self-oscillating dual gate fet mixer

Abstract

A single balanced self-oscillating dual gate FET mixer includes two dual-gate FETs, a dielectric resonator, two transmission lines inductively coupled to the resonator and connected to the second gates of the two dual-gate FETs, an RF input, two RF matching networks connected to the RF input and to the first gates of the two dual-gate FETs, a 180 degree power combiner, and two IF matching networks connected between the drains of the two dual-gate FETs and to the power combiner. The output of the power combiner is the IF output. The two dual-gate FETs comprise the active device of the oscillator and are used as a nonlinear mixing amplifier. The resonator network provides series feedback with gate 1 of each FET to produce the local oscillator signal and controls the frequency of oscillation. Single balancing of the local oscillator signals injected into gate 1 of each FET is accomplished by mutually coupling the resonator to the two transmission lines, thus providing the required 180 degree phase difference between signals. Finally, the 180 degree power combiner incorporates the phase change necessary for constructive addition of the IF signals originating from each drain port of each FET. With this structure the LO power is removed at the RF input to the mixer owing to the addition of leakage local oscillator signals that are 180 degrees out of phase.