308 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 27, NO.

3, MARCH 2017

Dual Frequency Millimeter-Wave Illumination

of a Detector Diode
Robert A. Smith, Senior Member, IEEE, and Zahra A. Pour, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract— In this letter, a GaAs beam lead diode is illuminated

by two fixed W-band millimeter-wave frequencies to assess the
difference frequency response at the X-band. Measured results
are compared with an expected mixed frequency response,
utilizing a Volterra series expansion solution, which considers
the reactive component influences under nonconjugate matching
conditions. A nonlinear model is assessed with the solution
approach to predict potential performance. A nonconjugate
matched condition provides good agreement with less than 2-dB
variation across the central slice of the response.
Index Terms— Harmonic analysis, millimeter-wave measure- Fig. 1. Experimental setup using Millitech W -band 6-in GOAs in the
ments, nonconjugate matching, nonlinear detection. transmitter system driven by an Agilent 8257 signal generator and Narda
X-band antenna and Agilent E4440A spectrum analyzer in the receive system
to form a test bed for millimeter-wave experiments.
I. I NTRODUCTION

M UCH of the published work on the nonlinear response

of electromagnetically illuminated objects focused on
single-frequency harmonics below the microwave region and
considered large scattering objects [1]–[3]. Multiple fre-
quency excitations results were consistent with harmonic
and intermodulation product techniques under ideal analysis
assumptions in [4] and [5] that included conjugate matching
conditions. More recently, studies have been performed for
radio frequency identification and remote sensing applications
using dual frequency illumination and frequency modulation
to excite harmonic responses [6], [7]. For many tracking
applications, existing approaches are not practical due to the
size of the antenna and limited read ranges. Millimeter-wave
approaches can scale antennas to smaller sizes and a frequency
mixing approach provides a method to obtain a tracking signal
that is not obscured by a clutter of the transmission signal and
potentially detectable at longer ranges.
This experiment illuminates a scattering object with dual
millimeter frequencies at 77 and 87 GHz to assess the
10-GHz difference frequency response. Section II details the
experimental approach. Section III explains the analytical
methodology, which is based on a realistic model of the
nonlinear scattering object, with corresponding results. It is
followed by some concluding remarks.
II. E XPERIMENTAL A PPROACH
The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1, where a laptop
computer was used to enable the transmit system, record
Manuscript received September 7, 2016; accepted November 16, 2016. Date
of publication February 15, 2017; date of current version March 9, 2017.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineer-
ing, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899 USA (e-mail:
ras0020@uah.edu; maria.pour@uah.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2017.2661703
1531-1309 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Fig. 2. Scattering object that shows the embedded mixer diode in the
waveguide with an aperture area of a × b. The internal waveguide surface is
copper. The waveguide top surface and the panel with the depth parameter
are shown partially transparent to aid in viewing the mixer diode location.
data from the spectrum analyzer and control movement of an
automated positioning system that located the scattering object
in discrete reference plane positions. The system transmitted
y-directed linearly polarized continuous wave output.
The two 15.24-cm diameter Gaussian optical
antennas (GOAs) were aligned so that the beams overlapped
at the reference plane that was sized to capture the span of
the Gaussian beams. The output power of each transmitter
was 14.9 dBm for the 77-GHz system and 14.7 dBm for the
87-GHz system. The GOA diameter establishes the far field
for the 77-GHz system at 11.9 m and the 87-GHz system at
13.5 m. The transmitters are 2.74 m from the reference plane,
which set the reference plane in the near-field region. The
automated positioning system moved the scattering object
through the 20-cm width and 15-cm high reference plane
in increments of 5 and 10 mm, respectively. The antennas
did not change positions as the scattering object was moved
through the reference plane.
The scattering object shown in Fig. 2 contains an MA40415
beam lead GaAs Schottky mixer diode [8]. The conductive
SMITH AND POUR: DUAL FREQUENCY MILLIMETER-WAVE ILLUMINATION OF A DETECTOR DIODE
Fig. 3. Measured 10-GHz power responses from the scattering object. The
peak value is −110.9 dBm at the center of the Gaussian profile. Responses
below −125 dBm represent the noise floor of the spectrum analyzer.
traces beyond the beam lead were cut to isolate a 2-mm
dipole structure with an embedded nonlinear component from
the detector circuit in the sacrificed device that provided the
waveguide structure. The aperture size was selected to propa-
gate the 10-GHz difference frequency signal in the waveguide.
For the air-filled rectangular waveguide shown in Fig. 2, the
cutoff frequency of the TE10 mode is 9.49 GHz.
The measured difference frequency power response from
the mixer diode at the reference plane is shown in Fig. 3 with
a maximum value of −110.9 dBm. In subsequent plots, the
referenced central slice contains data from the 0-cm vertical
measurement position across the horizontal axis.
III. A NALYTICAL M ETHODOLOGY AND R ESULTS
In this section, the circuit-model of the nonlinear scattering
object is presented and the analytical approach is described.
The analytical results are compared with the measured results.
Fig. 4 shows a circuit model of the GaAs beam lead detector
diode, where the component values and package parameters
are defined in [8] and [9]. The antenna impedance, Z A , is
calculated from finite-length dipole antenna equations for the
W -band incident fields and includes the Ohmic loss resistance,
R L , of the dipole structure [10]. The linear resistance, K NL1 ,
and nonlinear resistance elements, K NLp , are derived using a
Volterra Series expansion [11]; however, under initial excita-
tion, the nonlinear resistance is the junction resistance, R j ,
of the diode as defined in [8]. The remaining identifiers in
Fig. 4 are useful for defining the node voltage equations for the
circuit. For the 10-GHz response signal, the antenna elements
of the model are represented by the small dipole impedance
equations since the response wavelength at 10 GHz is 15 times
the dipole length.
Equation (1) represents the Volterra series expansion of
the diode current equation into the nonlinear resistance ele-
ments [11], where IOSC is the initial oscillator drive current,
V D is the voltage across the diode, and α = 34.9 V−1 for
a GaAs diode. The value of IOSC is calculated from the
average power incident on the mixer diode divided by the
incident voltage across the mixer diode without considering
309
Fig. 4. Circuit representation of detector diode [9], where Rs and
C D are the diode series resistance and junction capacitance, respectively,
C p and L are the package capacitance and lead inductance, respectively, and
K NLp are the Volterra series expansion elements of the junction resistance.
Z A is the antenna impedance calculated to be 79.7 + j60.1  at 77 GHz and
110.9 + j143.2  at 87 GHz.
the nonlinear elements. IOSC is used to calculate R j that is
used in the calculations of K NLp .
In (1), the n parameter of the term V D(n) represents an
order and not a power term. For example, (2) represents the
second-order difference frequency diode voltage associated
with the second term of (1), where H1 (x) is the first-order
transfer function of the circuit in Fig. 4. The viable difference
frequency terms are generated at even orders and have contri-
bution from artifacts in the first-order terms. For brevity, the
transfer functions and the order terms are not provided
α 2 V D(2) α 4 V D(4)
i D = Iosc αV D + Iosc + Iosc
2! 4!
α 6 V D(6) α 8 V D(8)
+ Iosc + Iosc (1)
6! 8!
∗ E
E 77
(2) 87 ∗
VD = H1 ( f 77 )H1( f 87 )e j 2π( f 87− f77 )t . (2)
2
The transfer function effective nonlinear factors are
(2) (4)
5.9−3 − j 2.8−3 for V D and two terms for V D which are
(6) (8)
21.4−6 − 10.1−6 and 69.3−6 − j 32.7−6. The V D and V D
nonlinear factors are at least two orders of magnitude smaller
and the incident voltage multipliers in the higher order transfer
functions do not overcome the small nonlinear factors. There-
fore, i D is set by the first three terms of (1) which are 1.2,
0.84, and 0.44 mA, respectively.
The calculation of the incident electric fields, E 77 and E 87 ,
at the waveguide aperture requires near-field solutions for the
electric fields using electric and magnetic vector potentials
and paraxial conditions. Since the GOA aperture is not in a
ground plane, we assume electric current density, Js , and a
magnetic current density, Ms , exist on the aperture surface
and are zero outside of the aperture [12]. For brevity, the
resulting equations are not provided. In the near-field analysis,
power was calculated at the reference grid horizontal and
vertical positions and validated with measurements at each grid
location using a W -band horn antenna. The maximum electric
field and input powers at the W -band horn antenna aperture
was calculated to be 1.03 V/m and 1.4 mW for the 77-GHz
system and 0.87 V/m and 1 mW for the 87-GHz system.
The incident mixer diode power is the power incident at
the waveguide aperture times the waveguide effective aperture.
Equation (3) defines the waveguide gain used to determine
the effective aperture, where a and b are the aperture dimen-
sions, λ is the appropriate incident wavelength, η is the free
310 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 27, NO. 3, MARCH 2017
Fig. 5. Comparison of measured difference frequency power response to cal-
culated results using Table I diode parameters cases. The central peak values
of the curves are as follows. Measured: −110.9 dBm. Case 1: −124.1 dBm.
Case 2: −121.3 dBm. Case 3: −109 dBm; Case 4: −110.9 dBm.
TABLE I
D IODE PARAMETER C ASE S TUDY D EFINITIONS [8], [9]
space impedance, and ηTE is the transverse-electric waveguide
impedance at the appropriate incident frequency [13]
32 ab ηTE
GW G = . (3)
π λ2 η
A nonconjugate matched power transfer analysis of the
circuit shown in Fig. 4 is performed using the calculated power
at the mixer diode to obtain the incident E 77 and E 87 fields
used in the transfer functions and diode voltage terms in (2)
and the higher order diode voltage terms. Next, the diode
current at the intermodulation frequency can be determined
from (1), where IOSC is calculated from the relationship of
the power at the diode to the incident electric field. The
current from (1) creates a radiated field at 10 GHz from the
small dipole. Since the receive antenna is in the far-field of
the radiating dipole, the scattered power is translated to the
receiver system using the radar range equation.
Fig. 5 shows the comparison of the analytical results against
Fig. 3 measured data across the central peak of the response.
The nominal diode parameters are C D = 0.065 + 0.01 pF
and Rs = 4.5 + 1.5  as defined in [8] and L = 0.1 nH
and C p = 0.02 + 0.01 pF as defined in [9]. No tolerance
was provided for the inductance. Table I shows the diode
parameters for four cases that bound the tolerance bands and
lead to a best-fit solution. Case 3 shows that the maximum
junction capacitance and the minimum package capacitance,
along with nominal values for the remaining parameters,
provide a reasonable comparison. Case 4 shows that lowering
the series resistance provides a lower bound result that aligns
well with the measured results.
The results that align best to the measured results are
highly dependent on the capacitance values and the inclusion
of inductance in the model. Without the package features
of inductance and capacitance, the results predict received
power that is well above the measured results. If the package
capacitance is not set to the low tolerance then the results
are higher by up to 20 dB. As shown in Fig. 5, the junction
capacitance of 0.075 pF in conjunction with the package
capacitance of 0.01 pF aligns well to the measured data and
the adjustment of the series resistance provides fine-tuning.
IV. C ONCLUSION
The experiment has measured a difference frequency
response from a dual frequency illumination scattering object.
An analytical approach using a Volterra series expansion with
transfer model representations of the diode equivalent circuit
shows good agreement with the measured results. An impor-
tant aspect of the analytical approach is the consideration
on nonconjugate matching for power transfer relationships at
the nonlinear component. The experiment demonstrates that
the reactive components of the equivalent circuit for a diode
model must be included in the analytical model in order
to successfully predict reasonable results at millimeter-wave
frequencies.
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