1.

1Dielectric Resonators:

Resonating elements are key to the function of most microwave circuits and systems. They are fundamental to the operation of filters and oscillators, and the quality of these circuits is basically limited by the resonator quality factor. Traditionally, microwave circuits have been encumbered by large, heavy, and mechanically complex waveguide structures that are expensive and difficult to adjust and maintain. Dielectric resonators, which can be made to perform the same functions as waveguide filters and resonant cavities, are, in contrast very small, stable, and lightweight.

Microwave Dielectric Resonator:

Microwave resonators are used in a variety of applications, including filters, oscillators, frequency meters, and tuned amplifiers. A small disc or cube of lowloss high dielectric constant material can also be used as a microwave resonator. Such dielectric resonators are similar in principle to the rectangular or cylindrical cavities. The high dielectric constant of the resonator ensures that most of the fields are contained within the dielectric but, unlike metallic cavities, there is some field fringing or leakage from the sides and ends of the dielectric resonator. Such a resonator is generally smaller in cost, size, and weight than an equivalent metallic cavity, and can very easily be incorporated into microwave integrated circuits and coupled to planar transmission lines. Materials with dielectric constants 10 < r< 100 are generally used. 1.1.1 What is it? A dielectric resonator is a piece of high dielectric constant material usually in the shape of a disc that functions as a miniature microwave resonator. 1.1.2 How does it work? The dielectric element functions as a resonator because of the internal reflections of electromagnetic waves at the high dielectric constant material/air boundary. This results in confinement of energy within, and in the vicinity of, the dielectric material which therefore forms a resonant structure. 1.1.3 Why use it? Dielectric resonators can replace traditional waveguide cavity resonators in most applications, especially in MIC structures. The resonator is

small, lightweight, high Q, temperature stable, low cost, and easy to use. A typical Q exceeds 10,000 at 4 GHz.

1.1.4 Theory of Operation:

1.1.4.1 A conventional metal wall microwave cavity resonates at
certain frequencies due to the internal reflections of electromagnetic waves at the air (vacuum)/metal boundary. These multiple reflections from this highly conductive boundary (electrical short) form a standing wave in a cavity with a specific electromagnetic field distribution at a unique frequency. Since a metal wall cavity has a very well-defined boundary (short) and there is no field leaking through the wall, the associated electromagnetic field problem can be easily solved through exact mathematical analysis and modes for various cavity shapes (e.g., rectangular cavity or circular cavity) are precisely defined. The TE (transverse electric) and TM (transverse magnetic) mode definitions are widely used. (Rectangular cavity analyzed in Cartesian coordinates) indicate how many of the electromagnetic field variations we have along each coordinate.

1.1.4.2 The case of a dielectric resonator situation is more complicated.

An electromagnetic wave propagating in a high dielectric medium and impinging on a high dielectric constant medium/air boundary will be reflected. However, contrary to a perfectly conducting boundary (e.g., highly conductive metal) this is a partial reflection and some of the wave will leak through the boundary to the other, low dielectric constant medium (e.g., air or vacuum). The higher the dielectric constant is of the dielectric medium, more of the electromagnetic wave is reflected and this boundary can be modeled not as a short (metal) but as an open. As in a metal wall cavity, these internal reflections form a resonant structure called a dielectric resonator. As in a conventional metal wall cavity, an infinite number of modes can exist in a dielectric resonator. To a first approximation, a dielectric resonator can be explained as a hypothetical magnetic wall cavity, which is the dual case of a metal (electric) wall cavity.

1.1.5 Dielectric resonator analysis approximations:

1.1.5.1 to a first approximation, a dielectric resonator can be explained as a hypothetical magnetic wall cavity, which is the dual case of a metal (electric) wall cavity. The magnetic wall concept (on which the normal component of the electric field and tangential component of a magnetic field vanish at the boundary) is well known and widely used as a theoretical tool in electromagnetic field theory. 1.1.5.2 in a very crude approximation, the air/high dielectric constant material interface can be modeled as such a magnetic wall (open circuit). Hence,

the field distribution and resonant frequencies for such a resonator can be calculated analytically. If the dielectric constant of the resonator increases, more of the electromagnetic field is confined in the resonator. In an actual resonator configuration, usually some sort of metal wall cavity or housing is necessary to prevent radiation of the electromagnetic field and resulting degradation of resonator Q.

DR: Dielectric resonator material. In advanced models, additional factors such as dielectric supports, tuning plate, and micro strip substrate, can also be taken into account. The resonant frequency of the dielectric resonator in these configurations can be calculated using mode matching methods with accuracy much better than 1%. The most commonly used mode in a dielectric resonator is the TE01 (in cylindrical resonator) or the TE11 (in rectangular resonator). The TE01 mode for certain Diameter/Length (D/L) ratios has the lowest resonant frequency, and therefore is classified as the fundamental mode.

For F0 calculations we specify D:

Matlab programs: 1 (Relation between Resonant frequency and Radius of DRO)

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t = 30:.1:40; --- % defining Range of relative permittivity of the dielectric

material.

z =1.3; --- % choosing fixed value: 0.5<z<2. for y=2:8 --- % creating a loop of radius changes. x = (34./(y*sqrt(t)))*(z+3.45); -- % Writing down the resonant
frequency equation. plot(t,x) ---- % plotting function between resonant frequency and the total range of relative permittivity in each case of radius. xlabel('Relative Permittivity') ---- % put the X-axis name. ylabel('Resonant frequency F0') ---- %put the Y-axis name. title('Resonant frequency variation with the Radius of DRO') --- % put the overall plot title.

hold on end ---- % ending the loop.

2 (Relation between Resonant frequency and Relative permittivity) z =1.3; --- % choosing fixed value: 0.5<z<2. y=2:.01:8; --- % defining Range of DRO radius. for t = 30:2:50 --- % creating a loop of Relative permittivity changes. x = (34./(y*sqrt(t)))*(z+3.45); -- % Writing down the resonant
frequency equation. plot(y,x) ---- % plotting function between resonant frequency and the total range of DRO radius in each case of Relative permittivity. xlabel('Radius of DRO') ---- % put the X-axis name. ylabel('Resonant frequency F0') ---- %put the Y-axis name.

title('Resonant frequency variation with the Relative permittivity') ---- % put the overall plot title. hold on end ---- % ending the loop.

3 (Relation between Resonant frequency and the ratio between radius of the DRO and its length) y =5 ; --- % choosing fixed value: 2<y<8. t= 30:.1:50; --- % defining Range of relative permittivity of the dielectric
material.

for z=0.5:0.2:2 --- % creating a loop of The ratio changes. x = (34./(y*sqrt(t)))*(z+3.45); -- % Writing down the resonant
frequency equation. plot(t,x) ---- % plotting function between resonant frequency and the total range of relative permittivity in each case of the ratio. xlabel('Relative permittivity') ---- % put the X-axis name. ylabel('Resonant frequency F0') ---- %put the Y-axis name.

title('Resonant frequency variation with the ratio between DRO radius and its length') ---- % put the overall plot title. hold on end ---- % ending the loop.

4 (Relation between Resonant frequency and the ratio between radius of the DRO and its length) t=40; --- % choosing fixed value: 30<t<50. y=2:0.1:8; --- % defining Range of DRO radius. for z=0.5:0.2:2 --- % creating a loop of The ratio changes. x = (34./(y*sqrt(t)))*(z+3.45); -- % Writing down the resonant
frequency equation.

xlabel('DRO radius') ---- % put the X-axis name. plot(y,x) ---- % plotting function between resonant frequency and the total
range of DRO radius in each case of the ratio. ylabel('Resonant frequency F0') ---- %put the Y-axis name.

title('Resonant frequency variation with the the ratio between DRO radius and its length') ---- % put the overall plot title. hold on end ---- % ending the loop.

1.1.6 Modes in systems:

The TE01 mode is the most popular and is used in single mode filters and oscillators. HE11 (HE indicates a hybrid mode) is used in high performance, dual mode filters, 17 directional filters and oscillators. TM mode is being used in cavity combiners and filters. Hybrid modes have all six components of the electromagnetic field. Very high order modes called whispering gallery modes are finding applications at millimeter wave frequencies. These modes were first observed by Rayleigh in a study of acoustic waves. By using an adjustable metal plate above the resonator, the resonant frequency can be mechanically tuned. Because of these desirable features, dielectric resonators have become key components for integrated microwave filters and oscillators.

1.1.6. ** Resonant Frequencies of TE01 Mode:

Below we will present an approximate analysis for the resonant frequencies of the TE01 mode of a cylindrical dielectric resonator; this mode is the one most commonly used in practice. The dielectric resonator is considered as a short length, L, of dielectric waveguide open at both ends. The lowest order TE mode of this guide is the TE01 mode, and is the dual of the TM01 mode of a circular metallic waveguide.

Because of the high permittivity of the resonator, propagation along the z-axis can occur inside the dielectric at the resonant frequency, but the fields will be cut off (evanescent) in the air regions around the dielectric. Thus the 11. Field will look like that sketched ; higher-order resonant modes will have more variations in the z direction inside the resonator since the resonant length, l, for the TE01 mode is less than(g/2)where g , is the guide wavelength of the TE61 dielectric waveguide mode( the symbol =2L/ g < 1) is used to denote the z variation of the resonant mode. Thus the equivalent circuit of the resonator looks like a length of transmission line terminated in purely reactive loads at both ends. Which involves the assumption that a magnetic wall boundary condition can be imposed at =a. This approximation is based on the fact that the reflection coefficient of a wave in a high dielectric constant region incident on an air-filled region approaches +1.

This reflection coefficient is the same as that obtained at a magnetic wall, or a perfect open circuit.

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1.1.7 Coupling to Microwave Structures:

An advantage of dielectric resonators is the ease with which these devices couple to common transmission lines such as waveguides and micro strip. A typical dielectric resonator in the TE01 mode can be transversely inserted into a rectangular waveguide. It couples strongly to the magnetic field, and acts as a simple band stop filter. 1.1.7.1 Coupling into the micro strip line: a dielectric TE11 resonator couples magnetically and forms a band stop filter The coupling can be easily adjusted by either moving the resonator away (or toward center) from the micro strip or by lifting the resonator on a special support above the micro strip.

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1.1.7.2 The coupling with rectangular wave guide can be easily adjusted by either moving the resonator away (or toward center) from the micro strip or by lifting the resonator on a special support above the micro strip.

The resonant frequency in this topology can be adjusted to higher frequency with a metal screw or plate located above the resonator and perturbing the magnetic field, or down in frequency by lifting the resonator (moving it away from the ground plane). Extra care must be taken, however, not to degrade the Q factor or temperature performance of the resonator by the closely positioned metal plate.

1.1.8 Ceramic Materials:

The major problem with previously available high Q materials, such as rutile or rutile ceramics, was the poor temperature stability of the dielectric constant and the resulting instability of the resonant frequency of the dielectric resonators. Newly developed high Q Ceramics, however, have excellent temperature stability and an almost zero temperature coefficient is possible. An interesting modification of the dielectric resonator is the so-called double resonator. Two halves of the ceramic disc or plate acts as one resonator . Adjustment of the separation between the two halves of the resonator results in changes of the resonant frequency of the structure. A much wider linear tuning range can be obtained in this configuration without degradation of the Q factor.

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1.1.9 Applications:
MIC components have become very common and presently more advanced, monolithic circuits (MMICs) are being used in many applications. MIC/MMIC structures have suffered, however, from a lack of high Q miniature elements that are required to construct high performance, narrowband filters, and highly stable, fundamental frequency oscillators. With the dielectric resonator described above, a very economical alternative, which also satisfies very stringent performance requirements, was introduced. Dielectric resonators find use as probing devices to measure dielectric properties of materials as well as the surface resistance of metals, and more recently high temperature superconductors (HTS). Additional applications include miniature antennas, where strongly radiating lower order resonator modes are successfully used.

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1. Oscillator
Oscillators deliver power either within a narrow bandwidth, or over a frequency range (i.e., they are tunable). Fixed oscillators are used for everything from narrowband power sources to precision clocks. Tunable oscillators are used as swept sources for testing, FM sources in communication systems, and the controlled oscillator in a phase-locked loop (PLL). Fixed tuned oscillators will have a power supply input and the oscillator output, while tunable sources will have one or more additional inputs to change the oscillator frequency. The output power level, frequency of output signal and power consumption are primary that define oscillator performance. The performance characteristics of an oscillator depend on the active device and resonator technologies used to fabricate and manufacture the component. Device technology mainly affects the oscillator maximum operating frequency, output power, and phase noise (jitter). Generally the quality factor, Q, is proportional to volume, so cost and size tend to increase with Q. Technologies such as quartz, SAW, yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) and dielectric resonators allow great reductions in size while achieving high Q by using acoustic, magnetic, and dielectric materials, respectively. Most materials change size with temperature, so temperature stable cavities have to be made of special materials. Quartz resonators are an extremely mature technology with excellent Q, temperature stability, and low cost. Most precision microwave sources use a quartz crystal to control a high-frequency tunable oscillator via a PLL. Oscillator noise power and jitter are inversely proportional to Q, making high resonator Q the most direct way to achieve a low noise oscillator. RF and microwave oscillators are universally found in all modern radar and wireless communications systems to provide signal sources for frequency conversion and carrier generation. A solid-state oscillator uses an active nonlinear device, such as a diode or transistor, in conjunction with a passive circuit to convert DC to a sinusoidal steady-state RF signal. Basic transistor oscillator circuits can generally be used at low frequencies, often with crystal resonators to provide improved frequency stability and low noise performance. At higher frequencies, diodes or transistors biased to a negative resistance operating point can be used with cavity, transmission line, or dielectric resonators to produce fundamental frequency oscillations up to100 GHz. Alternatively, frequency multipliers can be used to produce power at millimeter wave frequencies. Because of the requirement of a nonlinear active device, the rigorous analysis and design of oscillator circuits is very difficult.

RF OSCILLATORS:

In the most general sense, an oscillator is a nonlinear circuit that converts DC power to an AC waveform. Most RF oscillators provide sinusoidal outputs, which minimizes undesired harmonics and noise sidebands. The basic conceptual

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operation of a sinusoidal oscillator can be described with the linear feedback circuit.

An amplifier with voltage gain A has an output voltage V0. This voltage passes through a feedback network with a frequency dependent transfer function H (), and is added to the input Vi of the circuit. Thus the output voltage can be expressed as

which can be solved to yield the output voltage in terms of the input voltage as

If the denominator becomes zero at a particular frequency, it is possible to achieve a Non-zero output voltage for a zero input voltage, thus forming an oscillator. This is known as the Nyquist criterion, or the Barkhausen criterion In contrast to the design of an amplifier, where we design to achieve maximum stability, oscillator design depends on an unstable circuit. There are a large number of possible RF oscillator circuits using bipolar or fieldeffect transistors in either common emitter/source, base/gate, or collector/drain configurations. Various types of feedback networks lead to the well-known Hartley, Colpitts, Clapp, and Pierce oscillator circuits. All of these variations can be represented by the general oscillator circuit.

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Crystal Oscillators:
The resonant frequency of an oscillator is determined from the condition that a 180' phase shift occurs between the input and output of the transistor. If the resonant feedback circuit has a high Q, so that there is a very rapid change in the phase shift with frequency, the oscillator will have good frequency stability. Quartz crystals are useful for this purpose, especially at frequencies below a few hundred MHz, where lC resonators seldom have Qs greater than a few hundred. Quartz crystals may have unloaded Qs as high as 100,000 and temperature drift less than O.O0l%/C0. Crystal-controlled oscillators therefore find extensive use as stable frequency sources in RF systems. Further stability can be obtained by controlling the temperature of the quartz crystal. A quartz crystal resonator consists of a small slab of quartz mounted between two metallic plates. Mechanical oscillations can be excited in the crystal through the piezoelectric effect.

A typical crystal oscillator circuit is shown:

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Microwave oscillators:
In this section we focus on circuits that are useful for microwave frequency oscillators, primarily in terms of negative resistance devices. Where Zin =Rin +j Xin is the input impedance of the active device (e. g., a biased diode). In general this impedance is current (or voltage) dependent, as well as frequency dependent, which we can indicate by:

The device is Terminated with a passive load impedance

By applying kirchhove's voltage law

If oscillation is occurring, such that the RF current 1 is nonzero, then the following conditions must be satisfied:

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The process of oscillation depends on the nonlinear behavior of Zin, as follows. Initially, it is necessary for the overall circuit to be unstable at a certain frequency.

Rin(I, j) + Rl < 0.

Transistor Oscillator:

In a transistor oscillator, a negative-resistance one-port network is effectively created by terminating a potentially unstable transistor with impedance designed to drive the device in an unstable region. The circuit model is shown

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The actual power output port can be on either side of the transistor. In the case of an amplifier, we preferred a device with a high degree of stability-ideally, an unconditionally stable device. For an oscillator, we require a device with a high degree of stability ideally, common source or common gate FET configurations are used (common emitter or common base for bipolar devices). Often with positive feedback to enhance the instability of the device. After the transistor configuration is selected, the output stability circle can be drawn in the l plane, and l selected to produce a large value of negative resistance at the input to the transistor. Then the load impedance Z L can be chosen to match Zin. Because such a design uses the small-signal S parameters, and because R11 will become less negative as the oscillator power builds up, it is necessary to choose R; so that Rl+ Rin < 0. Otherwise, oscillation will cease when the increasing power increases Rin to the point where Rl+ Rin > 0. In practice, a value of

When oscillation occurs between the load network and the transistor, oscillation will simultaneously occur at the output port, which we can show as follows. For steady-state oscillation at the input port, we must have

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Dielectric Resonator Oscillator:

Oscillator stability is enhanced with the use of a high-Q tuning network. The Q of a resonant network using lumped elements or micro strip lines and stubs is typically limited to a few hundred. And while waveguide cavity resonators can have Qs of 104 or more, they are not well-suited for integration in miniature microwave integrated circuitry. Another disadvantage of metal cavities is the significant frequency drift caused by dimensional expansion due to a variation in temperature and can be made from ceramic materials that have excellent temperature stability. For these reasons, transistor dielectric resonator oscillators (DROs) are becoming increasingly common over the entire microwave and millimeter wave frequency range. A dielectric resonator is usually coupled to an oscillator circuit by positioning it in close proximity to a micro strip line (coupling methods).

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The resonator operates in the TEs15 mode, and couples to the fringing magnetic field of the micro strip line. The strength of coupling is determined by the spacing, d, between the resonator and micro strip line. Because coupling is via the magnetic field, the resonator appears as a series load on the micro strip line, as shown in the equivalent circuit

The resonator is modeled as a parallel RLC circuit, and the coupling to the feed line is modeled by the turns ratio, N, of the transformer.

We can express the equivalent series impedance, Z, seen by the micro strip line as

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