Measurements

Below you can find the laboratory  measurements made, that characterize the parts in the 150 GHz source.

Fig. 1  Final output from the 150 GHz, measured at 660 mm, corrected for free path loss and Extender response. The AMCI was set to attenuate 23 dB internally. A further 30 dB attenuation can be applied from the variable waveguide attenuator. Adding 23 dB and substracting the 7 dB calculated for the waveguide antenna effect, we get close to the 15 - 18 dBm AMCI maximum power expected.

Fig. 2  Power vs frequency measured at the AMCI input. The signal was measured with original tuning of the bandpass filter. Note the fast drop of the signal from 13 GHz on, inherent to the spare ADF5355 PLL now used.

Fig 3.   Power vs frequency measured at the AMCI input. The low frequency chain was modified: a 3 dB attenuator was inserted at the bandpass filter input. A second 6 dB filter was installed at the amplifier input, instead of the previous configuration, where the attenuator was installed at the amplifer output. This configuration reduces the reflections from poor matching between the PLL and filter. The 6 dB attenuator lowers the power driven by the amplifier, which in turn reduces the power consumption and heat dissipated.