| There is a need for millimeter-wave frequency multipliers to serve as power sources in fields such as radio astronomy, atmospheric remote sensing, and chemical spectroscopy. In radio astronomy in particular, multipliers often serve as local oscillators in heterodyne receiver systems.; Currently, the balanced doubler is the most widely used type of circuit architecture for frequency multipliers. Balanced doublers take advantage of circuit symmetry to isolate the even and odd harmonics, thereby making the output second harmonic signal easily distinguishable from the input first harmonic signal at the doubler output.; This dissertation introduces two novel circuit architectures for balanced frequency doublers---the nested ring-slot antenna doubler and the distributed balanced doubler. The nested ring-slot doubler exhibits an estimated 9 dB second harmonic conversion loss. Two versions of the distributed balanced doubler were fabricated and tested. The first, a 2-port device, yields a 4.4 dB second harmonic conversion loss with a 10% 3 dB bandwidth. The second, a 3-port device, yields a 10 dB second harmonic conversion loss with a 20% 3 dB bandwidth.; Formulating reliable circuit models for these novel multipliers is essential in understanding their operation, identifying critical design parameters, and predicting their behavior. The emphasis in this dissertation is therefore placed on modelling these doublers using a method that integrates the use of an electromagnetic structure simulator with a harmonic balance simulator. These circuits are then fabricated and tested, and measurements are used to corroborate simulations. |
