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Microwave and Wireless Components Letters
IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS
A Broadband High-Efficiency Rectifier for
Mid-field Wireless Power Transfer
Giang Le, Ngan Nguyen, Student Member, IEEE, Ngoc Duc Au, Member, IEEE, and Chulhun
Seo, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this letter, a compact broadband high-efficiency
microwave rectifier is presented for powering implantable med-
ical devices located deeply in the human body. By utilizing a
modified real frequency technique and an RF step-up transformer
at the input matching network, the proposed rectifier has a
measured conversion efficiency (η) exceeding 50% over a 62%
fractional bandwidth from 900 MHz to 1700 MHz at 0-dBm input
power level. For measured η above 50%, the widest dynamic
input power range achieved is from −7 dBm to 14.2 dBm at 1.5
GHz and the circuit sensitivity reaches up to −20 dBm with at
least 8% conversion efficiency. The circuit has a compact size of
16 × 11 mm2 , being suitable for biomedical implant applications.
Index Terms—Broadband rectifier, real frequency technique,
mid-field, wireless power transfer.
I. I NTRODUCTION
R ECENTLY, mid-field wireless power transfer (WPT) has
been emerging as a promising technique to maximize
power transfer efficiency (PTE) in deep-tissue miniatures [1],
[2]. At several centimeters of separation between TX and RX,
there exists an optimal frequency for maximizing PTE that
lies in the sub-GHz to the low GHz-range, corresponding to
mid-field where the wavelength is comparable to the separation
distance. Since successful mid-field WPT depends on effective
RF power delivery as well as efficient rectification, RF-to-DC
rectifier plays an important role in determining the efficiency
of WPT system. Hence, it is expected to have a rectifier with
both high conversion efficiency and wide operating bandwidth
to cover the frequency shifts caused by variations in the
electrical properties of body tissues [3].
Various kinds of rectifying topologies and design methods
have been intensively investigated in recent studies to improve
the conversion efficiency over a wide bandwidth. A matching
network using a quarter-wavelength short-circuited stub as
a parallel resonant compression topology is proposed in [4]
to achieve broadband impedance matching. An efficiency
above 50% is achieved at an input power of 5 dBm with
an operating bandwidth of 1–2.4 GHz. A broadband rectifier
using three transmission line stubs shows a bandwidth of
44.4% for efficiency over 70% at an input power of 14 dBm
[5]. A broadband rectifier using an uncomplicated matching
Manuscript received March 28, 2021; revised April 23, 2021; accepted
April 30, 2021. This work was supported by the Basic Science Research
Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded
by the Ministry of Science and ICT under Grant NRF-2017R1A5A1015596.
(Corresponding author: Chulhun Seo)
The authors are with the Department of Information and Communication
Convergence, Soongsil University, Seoul 06978, South Korea (e-mail: chul-
hun@ssu.ac.kr).
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network by adding an inductor to each of two diodes in
a voltage doubler configuration is presented in [6], which
has a measured efficiency above 50% from 0.54 to 1.3
GHz at 5 dBm input power. A cascaded L-section stage is
proposed to remove the capacitive component encountered at
the rectifier input in [7]. The circuit achieves an operating
bandwidth from 870 MHz to 2.5 GHz and a compact size
by utilizing surface-mounted devices in the design. A two-
branch impedance matching circuit has been used to realize
a broadband rectifier ranging from 1.8 to 2.5 GHz, and the
maximum conversion efficiency can reach 55% when the input
power is –10 dBm [8]. Besides, the simplified real frequency
technique (SRFT) has been utilized in [9], [10] to synthesize
multistage LC ladder matching networks for the designs of
microwave broadband rectifier. In [11], a rectifier comprising
two sub-rectifiers and a second-order branch-line coupler has
an efficiency of more than 70% over a 500-MHz bandwidth
from 2.08 GHz to 2.58 GHz.
However, from the previous literature, it is challenging
to achieve both broadband characteristic and extended input
power range in a high-efficiency rectifier design due to the
nonlinear characteristic of a rectifying diode with varying
operating frequency and input power level. Therefore, a novel
rectifier based on a modified real frequency (MRF) technique
and an introduction of a step-up RF transformer is proposed to
achieve both broadband and wide dynamic input power range
characteristics. The MRF technique is a numerical technique
that works on the generation of bounded input reflection
coefficient for optimum performance, which is different from
other conventional methods that the network topology has to
be selected for the matching network to be constructed. The
fabricated rectifier achieves an operating bandwidth of 0.9-1.7
GHz with a conversion efficiency exceeding 50% at 0-dBm
input power level. The circuit has a compact size of 16 × 11
mm2 , leading to the feasibility of being used with biomedical
implant devices.
II. B ROADBAND R ECTIFIER D ESIGN
A. Sensitivity Enhancement
The Schottky diode has a limited threshold voltage that
can affect sensitivity, which is the minimum input voltage
required to activate the rectification operation of the rectifier,
and rectification efficiency of a rectifier at low input power
levels. Various studies have been conducted to widen the input
operating power range, such as the dual resonant rectifier in
[12], or the reconfigurable rectifier in [13]. In [14], a step-
up transformer is utilized to increase the power efficiency of
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Fig. 2. Final schematic of the proposed rectifier.

and the transformed impedance. This technique has been suc-

cessfully used in the design of broadband microwave amplifier
[15] and power amplifier [16]. The principle of this technique
is describing the lossless two-port matching network in terms
Fig. 1. (a) Configuration of the proposed broadband rectifier. (b) Frequency
responses of the transformer. (c) Comparison of MRF technique generated of its bounded real input reflectance, then the matching prob-
fundamental impedance and optimal source impedance of the rectifying lem can be addressed by solving a quadratic and convergent
circuit. objective function under nonlinear optimization over a given
frequency band. The matching network is characterized by the
a passive transponder by boosting the voltage at the input scattering matrix in Belevitch form such that
of the voltage multiplier. In our design, a novel topology is   " h(p) f (p)
#
proposed to increase the sensitivity of the rectifier as shown in S11 S12 g(p) g(p)
S= = f (p) −µh(−p) (1)
Fig. 1(a). A step-up RF transformer is connected at the input S21 S22
g(p) g(p)
port before the rectifying circuit and its matching network to where p = σ + jω is the complex variable. The coefficients of
boost the input voltage, thus enhance the sensitivity. The RF the numerator polynomial h(p) are selected as the unknowns
transformer must be designed for use in a 50-ohm system of the matching problem. The polynomial f (p) is either
and have a wide operating frequency range. Furthermore, its even or odd polynomial and properly determined by selecting
transformation impedance ratio should not be too high so that transmission zeros of the matching network. The denominator
a matching network can be designed and realized later. For g(p) is generated as a strictly Hurwitz polynomial from h(p)
this case, Mini-Circuits RF transformer TCM4-25+, which has and f (p) as follows
a wide operating bandwidth from 500 MHz to 2500 MHz as
shown in Fig. 1(b) and an impedance ratio (secondary/primary) g(p)g(−p) = h(p)h(−p) + f (p)f (−p) (2)
of 4:1, is utilized. The voltage ratio of the secondary winding Moreover, the input VSWR of the matching network is ex-
and primary winding V2 /V1 , which equals to a square root pressed as an additional target function beside the Transducer
of the impedance ratio, is 2:1, so that the voltage across the Power Gain (TPG) of the traditional SRFT. The TPG and input
transformer can be doubly boosted. It should be noted that VSWR of the matched system are expressed as
the RF transformer is not included as a part in the design of
2 2 2
the matching network in the following section. The matching (1 − |ΓG,T | ) |S21 | (1 − |Γs,opt | )
T (ω) = 2 2 (3)
network is designed to match with the transformed impedance |1 − ΓG,T Γout | |1 − S22 Γs,opt |
at the secondary winding, which is 200 Ω in this case.
1 + |Γin |
V SW R(ω) = (4)
1 − |Γin |
B. Modified Real Frequency Technique
where Γs,opt and ΓG,T are the corresponding reflectance
For a broadband rectifier design, it is important to match of the rectifying circuit’s optimal source impedance and the
the system impedance with the optimal source impedance of transformed impedance after the transformer, respectively. Γin
the rectifying circuit over a wide bandwidth to maximize and Γout are the input and output reflection coefficient of the
power conversion efficiency. To obtain the optimal funda- matching network when output and input loaded on Γs,opt and
mental impedance at the source of the rectifying circuit, a ΓG,T , respectively.
source-pull simulation based on harmonic balance analysis is The objective function used in the optimization process to
performed using Advanced Design System (ADS) software. find the polynomial coefficients of h(p) is expressed as
Fig. 1(c) shows the simulated optimal source impedance of m h i
the rectifying circuit from 0.8 GHz to 1.8 GHz at three ε=
X 2
W1 (T (ωi ) − T0 ) + W2 (V SW R(ωi ) − V SW R0 )
2
different input power levels with an optimal DC load resistor i=1
of 750 Ω. It can be seen that the optimal source impedance (5)
rotates counter-clockwise on the Smith chart as a function of where T0 and V SW R0 are the desired target transducer
increasing frequency. power gain and input VSWR of the network, respectively, and
As a universal numerical approach for broadband matching m is the number of sampling frequencies. In this case, the
problem, the real frequency technique is utilized here to frequency values chosen for optimization start from 0.9 GHz
construct the matching network between the rectifying circuit to 1.7 GHz with a 0.1 GHz step. W1 and W2 are weighting

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(a) (b)
Fig. 3. (a) Reflection coefficient |S11 | versus frequency at 0-dBm input power.
(b) Conversion efficiency versus frequency at different input power levels.

Fig. 5. (a) Fabricated RX prototype. (b) Fabricated TX prototype. (c) Diagram

of experiment system. (d) Photograph of measurement setup.

TABLE I
C OMPARISON OF T HE P ROPOSED R ECTIFIER W ITH R ELATED D ESIGNS

Frequency Average dynamic Circuit size

Ref. Efficiency
(GHz) range (dBm) (mm2 )
[4] 1-2.4 >50%@5 dBm 3 – 14 1000
[5] 2.1-3.3 >70%@14 dBm 4 – 16 558
[6] 0.54-1.3 >50%@5 dBm 3 – 14 670
(a) (b)
[9] 1.25-2.25 >50%@23 dBm 9 – 27 525
Fig. 4. (a) Measured conversion efficiency and output DC voltage versus input This work 0.9-1.7 >50%@0 dBm −4 – 12.3 176
power at five frequencies. (b) Simulated conversion efficiency and output DC
voltage versus input power in two cases: with and without the RF transformer.
other related works are presented in Table I. It can be seen
that our proposed circuit performs well in terms of efficiency,
factors and chosen as W1 = 1 and W2 = 5 as the input
bandwidth relative to a wide range of input power levels and
VSWR is the main concern in designing the matching network.
has the smallest size overall.
After solving the objective function using the least-square
For further evaluating the rectification performance, the
nonlinear optimization algorithm in MATLAB, we obtain the
proposed rectifier is tested with our recently developed mid-
coefficients of h(p) polynomial and then the S-Parameters
field WPT system operating at 1.5 GHz [18], which is the
of the matching network can also be determined. A three-
optimal frequency for heart tissue with the separation d of
stage L-section matching network with a resonant LC pair
55 mm between the human heart and the TX source. The
for required transmission zero at the second harmonic of 1.5
implantable antenna and the TX source used in this work
GHz is synthesized from calculated S11 using the Darlington
are shown in Fig. 5(a) and (b), respectively. The measured
theorem [17] as shown in Fig. 2.
transmission coefficient |S21 | of the system is −22.5 dB, which
can be converted to a 0.56% power transfer efficiency. Fig.
III. FABRICATION AND M EASUREMENT R ESULTS 5(c) and (d) depict the block diagram and the photograph of
The proposed rectifier circuit was fabricated on TLC-32 the measurement setup for testing the WPT system. When
substrate with the dielectric constant r = 3.2 and a thickness applying 250 mW (24 dBm) to the transmitter source, the
h = 0.8 mm. The total size of the circuit is 16 × 11 mm2 . measured DC power at the load of the proposed rectifier is
The simulated and measured reflection coefficient |S11 | in approximately 0.9 mW. This received power is by far greater
Fig. 3(a) show good performances from 900 MHz to 1.7 than the requirements by biomedical implant devices, for
GHz. Fig. 3(b) shows the measured and simulated RF-DC example, the cardiac pacemakers consume only approximately
conversion efficiency versus frequency at five different input 8 µW [19].
power levels with an optimal load resistor of 750 Ω. The
measured efficiency remains above 50% from 0.9 to 1.7 GHz IV. C ONCLUSION
when the input power varies from 0 to 10 dBm, while the A novel broadband RF-DC rectifier consisting of an RF
maximum achieved efficiency is 74% for an input power level transformer and a matching network employed real frequency
of 5 dBm at 1 GHz. The conversion efficiency and output technique is presented in this letter. The conversion efficiency
DC voltage of the rectifier at different input power levels of the proposed rectifier exceeds 50% from 0.9 to 1.7 GHz
are depicted in Fig. 4(a). The measurement results show a and maintains above 50% at all frequencies when the input
minimum dynamic input power range of 16.3 dB from −4 to power varies from −4 to 12.3 dBm. Along with broadband
12.3 dBm for an over 50% conversion efficiency, while the feature and wide dynamic input power range characteristic, the
widest obtained dynamic range is 21.2 dB (−7–14.2 dBm) rectifier has a compact size, making it a potential candidate
at 1.5 GHz. The performance of this proposed rectifier and for various biomedical implant WPT applications.

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Microwave and Wireless Components Letters
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