IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 30, NO.
6, JUNE 2020
Distributed-Element Reflectionless Bandstop Filter
With a Broadband Impedance Matching
Jongheun Lee and Juseop Lee , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract— In this letter, we present a systematic design method
for a reflectionless bandstop filter using distributed-element
resonators. One unique feature of the presented filter structure is
that it is capable of producing a broadband impedance matching
at both ports with a flat passband. For verifying the design
approach, a second-order Butterworth reflectionless bandstop
filter centered at 2 GHz with fractional bandwidth of 8%
has been designed, fabricated, and measured. The measurement
shows that the return losses (S11 and S22 ) are overall larger than
10 dB from DC to 3 f0 .
Index Terms— Absorptive filter, reflectionless filter.
I. I NTRODUCTION
R EFLECTIONLESS filters contribute to improving the
electrical performance of a wireless system as they do
not produce reflected signals in the stopband. Hence, extensive
works on reflectionless filters have been widely carried out.
Pioneer works on reflectionless bandstop filter topologies
in [1]–[5] are intended for obtaining the infinite attenuation
at the center frequency using low-Q resonators with perfect
impedance matching at the center frequency. Useful design
approaches including higher order bandstop filter designs can
also be found in [6]–[11].
Separately, various types of reflectionless lowpass filter pro-
totypes have also been investigated in [12]–[20]. Theoretically,
a reflectionless bandpass or bandstop response can be pro-
duced by applying lowpass-to-bandpass or -bandstop transfor-
mation to each element comprising the lowpass prototypes.
However, the design approaches and topologies in the litera-
ture have at least one of the following downsides.
1) One port is matched.
2) Designs are limited to lumped-element filters.
3) Perfect impedance matching is not available from
topologies.
4) Finding the element values of the lowpass filter proto-
types relies on using a numerical method, an empirical
approach and/or an optimization technique.
This letter is to expand the design approach in [19] and
present a systematic design method for a distributed-element
Manuscript received February 3, 2020; revised April 11, 2020; accepted
April 23, 2020. Date of publication May 7, 2020; date of current version
June 5, 2020. This work was supported by the National Research Founda-
tion of Korea (NRF) through the Korea Government (MSIT) under Grant
NRF-2018R1A2B6006095. (Corresponding author: Juseop Lee.)
The authors are with the Department of Computer and Communications
Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, South Korea (e-mail: juseoplee@
gmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2020.2990986
1531-1309 © 2020 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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561
bandstop filter having no aforementioned drawbacks. For
describing our approach, this letter presents a new lumped-
element filter topology equivalent to the one in [19]. One
of the significant features of the presented design approach
is that it allows a filter to have a wider impedance-matched
frequency range compared to the other design approaches on
reflectionless bandstop filters. For demonstrating our design
method, this letter discusses the design of a second-order
Butterworth reflectionless bandstop filter centered at 2 GHz
with the fractional bandwidth of 8% as an example.
II. D ESIGN
For developing the design method for a distributed-element
reflectionless bandstop filter, we have first derived the normal-
ized reflectionless lowpass filter topology shown in Fig. 1(a)
from the one in [19]. The normalized element values for
producing a second-order Butterworth lowpass response with
the cutoff frequency at  = 1 ( : normalized frequency) can
be derived, and they are
g1 = 1.414
g2 = 0.707
g3 = 2.000
g4 = 1.414
g5 = 2.000. (1)
Fig. 1(b) shows the comparison of the frequency responses
of the lowpass filter prototype shown in Fig. 1(a) when having
the element values in (1) with the ones of conventional second-
order reflective Butterworth lowpass filter prototype. It can be
observed that the presented filter can produce the transmission
responses identical to ones of Butterworth filters, while having
no reflections at all.
A bandstop filter topology can be obtained by applying
the lowpass-to-bandstop transformation to the lowpass filter
topology shown in Fig. 1(a). The process transforms the
inductors and capacitors into parallel and series LC resonators,
leaving the resistors, and the −1:1 transformer unchanged.
For designing a distributed-element filter circuit, the parallel
and series LC resonators are replaced by quarter-wavelength
short- and open-circuited series stubs, respectively. As the
−1:1 transformer is to generate 180◦ phase shift, the trans-
former can be replaced by a half-wavelength transmission line
as shown in Fig. 2(a). Although the line has a frequency-
variant feature, a wide range of its characteristic impedance,
Z 4 , gives a good return loss larger than 10 dB. However,
in practice, the return loss performance and the fabrication
capability need to be considered in determining Z 4 , which
562 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 30, NO. 6, JUNE 2020

Fig. 1. Second-order Butterworth reflectionless lowpass filter prototype.

(a) Circuit schematic. (b) Frequency responses.

will be further discussed in detail. Other design parameters

of the circuit in Fig. 2(a) can be expressed in terms of the
lowpass prototype values in (1), and they are
π Z 0 g1 
Z1 =
4
4Z 0
Z2 =
πg2 
π Z 0 g4 
Z3 =
4 Fig. 2. Second-order Butterworth reflectionless bandstop filter. (a) Circuit
R1 = Z 0 g 3 diagram with series stubs. (b) Circuit diagram with coupled lines. (c) Fre-
R2 = Z 0 g 5 (2) quency responses of the circuits in (a) and (b) with Z 0 = 50 , Z 1 = 4.44 ,
Z 2 = 1125.22 , Z 3 = 4.44 , Z 4 = 1200 , Z 5 = 50 , R1 = 100 ,
where Z 0 and  denote the port impedance and the 3-dB R2 = 100 , Z 1e = 69.99 , Z 1o = 38.89 , Z 2e = 60.31 , Z 2o = 39.68 ,
Z 3e = 54.35 , Z 3o = 48.13 , N = 4.84, and R2 = 1153.2 .
fractional bandwidth, respectively.
It is widely known that implementing series stubs
in Fig. 2(a) is challenging in practice. For implementing the √
Z3 + Z4 + Z 3 (Z 3 + Z 4 )
filter using distributed elements, this letter presents a practical Z 3e =
√N2
methodology to transform the circuit in Fig. 2(a) into the one
Z 3 + Z 4 − Z 3 (Z 3 + Z 4 )
without series stubs. As a one-wavelength line gives zero phase Z 3o =
at the center frequency, this letter proposes to add a half- N2
R (Z + Z )
R2 =
2 3 4
wavelength line with the impedance of Z 5 to each side of the
N 2 Z3
series stub with the impedance of Z 1 . Using the fact that each 
series stub accompanied by an adjoining line is equivalent to Z2
N = +1 (3)
coupled lines, we can derive a bandstop filter structure shown Z5
in Fig. 2(b) whose design parameters are
 where N is the ratio of the impedance transformer that appears
Z 1e = Z 1 + Z 5 + Z 1 (Z 1 + Z 5 )
 in transforming each open-circuit stub. For removing the
Z 1o = Z 1 + Z 5 − Z 1 (Z 1 + Z 5 ) impedance transformers, we have scaled down the element
Z 5 (N + 1) values of the lower half part of the circuit by N 2 as can be
Z 2e =
N seen in Figs. 2(b) and (3).
Z 5 (N − 1) As discussed before, a wide range of Z 4 gives a good
Z 2o =
N impedance matching performance. However, according to (3),

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LEE AND LEE: DISTRIBUTED-ELEMENT REFLECTIONLESS BANDSTOP FILTER
Fig. 3. (a) Top-view of the designed filter along with the dimensions
(w0 = 1.54, w1 = 1.8, w2 = 1.46, w3 = 1.65, w4 = 1.8, l0 = 5, l1 =
26.8, l2 = 27.2, l3 = 25.2, l4 = 28, l5 = 19, s1 = 0.2, s2 = 0.11, s3 = 0.54).
All dimensions are in mm. (b) Top-view of the fabricated filter.
N is larger than 1 when designing a narrowband filter, and
this in turn implies that it is preferred to have a large value
of Z 4 from the perspective of circuit fabrication. Our analysis
on the circuit structure in Fig. 2(a) indicates that Z 4 can be as
high as 1200  for having the return loss larger than 10 dB
at both ports in our filter design. The dashed lines in Fig. 2(c)
shows the responses of the circuit shown in Fig. 2(a) when the
center frequency, fractional bandwidth, and Z 4 are 2 GHz, 8%,
and 1200 , respectively, and the other design parameters are
found by using (2).
The circuit shown in Fig. 2(b) is equivalent to the one
in Fig. 2(a) with a half-wavelength line added to each side
of the stub with an impedance of Z 1 . It has been found
that adding two half-wavelength lines with the impedance
close to Z 0 rarely changes the transmission response since the
return losses are maintained to be larger than 10 dB over the
entire frequency range. The solid lines in Fig. 2(c) shows
the responses of the circuit in Fig. 2(b) when the parameters
are found by using (3) with Z 5 = Z 0 = 50 . The transmission
responses are rarely distinguishable from each other. Both
circuits do not have the perfect impedance matching over the
entire frequency domain due to the frequency-variant features
of the aforementioned lines. Nevertheless, the circuits have
good return losses larger than 10 dB over the entire frequency
range.
III. V ERIFICATION
In order to verify the distributed-element filter circuit
in Fig. 2(b) and the design equations in (1)–(3), a bandstop
filter centered at 2 GHz with the fractional bandwidth of 8%
has been designed, fabricated, and measured. The filter has
been fabricated on a 0.508-mm-thick-Rogers 5880 substrate
(r = 2.2, tanδ = 0.0009) and the values given in Fig. 2 are
used in this fabrication. Fig. 3(a) shows the top-view of
the microstrip line structure along with the dimensions. The
fabricated filter is shown in Fig. 3(b).
Fig. 4 shows the circuit simulation of the circuit shown
in Fig. 2(b), the full-wave simulation of the circuit shown
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563
Fig. 4. Measured frequency responses of the reflectionless bandstop filter
with simulated results. (a) Power transmission ratio. (b) Power reflection ratio.
in Fig. 3(a), and the measurement of the fabricated circuit is
shown in Fig. 3(b). Overall, the full-wave simulation and the
measurement agree well with the circuit simulation over the
entire frequency range of interest except around 4 GHz (2 f 0 ).
This discrepancy can be attributed to the unequal even- and
odd-mode phase velocities of the microstrip coupled lines in
an inhomogeneous medium. It can be removed, for example,
by designing a filter circuit using striplines in a homogeneous
medium, but it is not in the scope of this letter. Despite
the discrepancies, the measured reflections are smaller than
−10 dB with a flat passband up to 6 GHz, except at 4 GHz.
IV. C ONCLUSION
In this letter, we have presented an analytic design method
for reflectionless distributed-element bandstop filters. Closed-
form equations expressed in terms of the filter parameters
have been derived so that a filter can be readily designed.
As our design approach is based on transforming the lumped
elements to distributed elements with using transmission lines
that inherently have frequency-variant feature, it is more
suited for narrowband filter designs. For practical filter imple-
mentation, we have described an approach to transform the
lumped-element lowpass filter topology into a coupled-line
bandstop filter circuit. Overall, the filter design example has
the return loss larger than 10 dB over the frequency range
from DC to 3 f 0 .
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