The role of Optical Ports in the next generation of MMICs

摘要

This paper shows a deep review of the measurement techniques, modeling and electro-optical control of active microwave devices developed by our group. A complete bias and optical power dependent of the large signal model for a P-HEMT is determined from experimental scattering parameters, DC and pulsed measurements. Model predictions exhibit very good agreement with measurements. Two different MMIC devices have been investigated: a GaAs chip monolithic amplifier at S band, and an AlGaAs chip MMIC voltage controlled oscillator at Ku band. The possibilities of optical control of the amplifier are evidenced as follows: if the amplifier operates with the same bias, RF gain can be optically controlled from a condition of almost isolation, up to an active condition, which gives a wide optical range and provides an improvement of the input and output matching. The possibilities of optical control of the VCO by illumination of the PHEMT transistor are demonstrated through measurements of the oscillation output power and frequency. This optical control suggests an interesting control of gain and matching for other microwave FET based active devices.