J. Phys. D : Appl. Phys., Vol. 8, 1975. Printed in Great Britain.

0 1975

The use of punch-through diodes in self-oscillating mixers

A Vanoverschelde, G Salmer, J Ramaut, and D Meignant

Centre HyperfrCquenceset Semiconducteurs,Equipe AssociCe CNRS no. 454, Universite
de Lille 1, BP 36 59650 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France

Received 9 December 1974, in final form 28 February 1975

Abstract. Several works on punch-through diodes have shown the capability of the
device when used as a low-noise local oscillator or amplifier. These results lead us to
expect similar noise performances in self-mixing systems. The purpose of this paper
is to present some experimental and theoretical results concerning punch-through diodes
used as self-oscillating X-band mixers. The noise figure and conversion gain have been
measured against bias current, self oscillator (LO) power level and input power, for
IF frequencies ranging from 100 KHz to 100 MHz. A noise figure of 8.5 dB was obtained
with N+P T N+ diodes. An analytical treatment is given for frequency conversion
effects in terms of a quasilinear network theory. Theoretical results on conversion gain
are presented which indicate substantial qualitative agreement with experimental results.

1. Introduction

For a cheap and simple self-oscillating mixer, two-terminal solid-state devices can be
used. Several studies on Gunn and avalanche diodes have shown the capability of these
devices in a self-mixing system. Recently, the punch-through diode has come on the
scene (Snapp and Weissglass 1972, Wright 19731, and it shows very attractive noise
performances due to the emission mechanism of carriers (Sjolund 1973). These results
lead us to expect similar noise performances in mixers. In this paper, the experimental
behaviour of two complementary punch-through diodes are presented and compared with
an analytical theory.

2. Components and mixer circuits

The selected diodes are made of silicon with differentiated doping profiles, as shown in
figure 1. In case (a) carriers are electrons and in case (b) they are holes. The advantage of
structure (a) is the low electric field value for which the electron velocity is nearly con-
stant; a weaker impurity concentration in the P region can then be used. This leads to a
smaller operating voltage for structure (a) than for structure (b) (Delagebeaudeuf 1974).
The diode is mounted on the broad wall of an X-band waveguide under a flat cap
which also acts as a bias lead (figure 2). The cap diode assembly is then tuned with a
movable short circuit and screws, in order to vary oscillator power.
A very-low-level signal is applied through an isolator. The signal at the intermediate
frequency is extracted from the DC bias circuit.

1108
 Use of punch-through diodes in self-oscillating mixers 1109

Figure 1. Structure, doping profile and electric field profiles for punch-through devices.

Tuning
screws

Wo vegui

‘DlOdt?

Figure 2. X-band mixer mount.

3. Experimental results

Typical results are given in figure 3 in which conversion g a d variations are patted against
the frequency of a weak signal delivered by a sweep generator. Gain increases with
oscillator power, a long way from oscillator frequency, and presents a maximum near
this frequency. From this, we can deduce the external quality factor which will be used
in our analytical theory. The quality factor value is about 100.
In addition to the already considered properties, noise is of great importance in
mixers. The noise figure of punch-through-diode mixers was measured with classical
methods by connecting a noise source in parallel to the input and doubling the output
power. The P+NvP+ structure is substantially noisier than N+PrrN+ (figure 4a, c ) .
With this latter structure, a noise figure of 8.5 dB was obtained for an intermediate
frequency of 10MHz. Moreover, these curves show that the noise figure minimum
increases with DC bias current. Figure 4(b) shows the corresponding conversion gain
variations; a typical value is about 10 dB.
1110 A Vunoveuschelde, G Salmer, J Ramaut, and D Meignant

10.3 035
Frequency F(GHz)
Figure 3. Conversion gain variations against signal frequency for different oscillator
powers.

I6
NPn N

2
-0
12.
c
U -2OmA

8-
0.2 04
0.4 06
0.6

PNvP
161 (c)

60mA

st IO 20

e (mW)
Figure 4. Noise figure (U, c) and conversion gain (b)as a function of oscillator power with
current as a parameter: (a) and (b) structure NPTN, ( c ) structure PNvP.
 Use of punch-through diodes in se2f-oscillating mixers 1111

In figure 5, the measured noise figure is plotted as a function of the intermediate fre-
quency. It can be seen that, due to the l/f noise component, the noise figure increases
as the intermediate frequency decreases. Note that similar variations have been found
for the complementary structure N+PrN+. Therefore, in this case, a greater llfnoise
corroborates the worse noise figure given above. For larger frequencies, the increasing
noise behaviour may be explained by conversion losses.

6 = I0.3GHz //I

1 I I
0 I IO
Intermediate frequency (MHz)

Figure 5. Noise figure as a function of intermediate frequency for three DC bias currents.

We also studied the linearity of conversion gain: an output dynamic range extending
from 1 pW to 0.1 mW was achieved with a 10 dB conversion gain, with P+NvP+structure
and for an intermediate frequency of 30 MHz.

4. Theory

An analytical theory has been elaborated in which the properties of mixers are developed
in terms of quasilinear network theory (Hines 1972). First, it is assumed that the device
is strongly driven by a sinusoidal voltage wave at fundamental frequencyfo. This is the
result of self-excited oscillation in the punch-through oscillator circuit. In addition, a
small signal at another frequencyfi near fo is applied. As a result, we expect currents to
flow at these frequencies and at other induced frequencies ji such as fi -fo.
For the Baritt model, we shall consider a thin emission zone at one edge and a thick
drift region in which drift carrier velocity is assumed to be constant. The particular
current-voltage relationship at the injection plane is given by the formula of thermionic
emission over a forward-biased junction :

I p =l o o exp (pr e ) /?=q/kT. (1)

This is in good agreement with the theory Of DC transport in punch-through structures
developed by Chu et ai (1972), who considered both the electron and hole currents in
terms of such an emission process.
Under dynamic conditions, the transit time in the emission zone can be neglected at
operating frequencies. We follow Sheorey et al (1971) in assuming that the above
current form, where Ve is the time-dependent variation of barrier height, is realistic.
1112 A Vanoverschelde, G Salmer, J Ramaut, and D Meignant

As pointed out above, the level VOof the self-oscillator voltage was much greater than
that of the applied signal VI and that of the induced voltage Vi at the intermediate fre-
quencyfi. Thus if equation (I) is expanded into Taylor series, for the small signal com-
ponents, only the first terms in the series need be retained:

where
(n 1
Ip# C 1, exp ( j n w t ) (1sPV1 exp (jw,t)+jgVi exp ( j 4 ) (3)

100 exp (jgVo)=C 1% exp (jnwot).

n

It follows that the emission zone can be represented as a linear four-pole network for the
two frequenciesfl andfi:

i"")
rip* =P(Z i"j.Vi * (4)

Moreover, in order to obtain the external or total currents at the two frequenciesfi
andj; in the emission zone, we must add the displacement current:

where Ce is the capacitance of the injection region.

In the drift region the total currents are given by these formulae:

IlT =kd1p +j WlCt Vlt (6)

IiT* =ki*lip* -jwictVit*
k = (1 -exp (- j O))/j 6 is a term function of the transit angle 6 = w W/vwhich comes from
the transit effect of carriers at constant velocity U through the transit zone of length W.
Ct and Vt are respectively the capacitance and the voltage of the drift region.
Besides, the external voltage is the sum of emission zone and transit zone voltages at
each frequency :

VlT V1-k vlt (7)

ViT* = vi* + Vit".

Thus we can deduce the relationships between total currents and external voltages at the
two frequenciesj; andfi. Our mixer is then represented as a linear four-pole network:
 Use of punch-through diodes in se&oscillating mixers 1113

where

(ie the ratio of two modified Bessel functions of the first kind)

is the small-signal impedance of the diode.

The subscripts ‘1’ and ‘i’ denote quantities at applied small-signal frequency and
intermediate frequency, respectively.
The conversion gain can be deduced from the admittance seen by the diode at f1 and
fi:

with
Y1’= Y11--
YlZ Y2l YlZ YZl
Y2’ = Yzz - ___
GL+ Yzz Yl+ Yl1
where GLis the load conductance atfi.
At f1 the admittance YI may be considered as the sum of the opposite of the oscillation
frequency admittance and of a term proportional to the external Qext factor:

1
-
15

10.
m
V
v

.-c
0
0,

c 5-
.-LIn
0

f
C
U
0

0-

A
Oscillator power (mW)
Figure 6. Experimental (-) and theoretical (m,E, conversion gain against oscillator
power for two intermediate frequencies of 10 and 30 MHz.
1114 A Vanoverschelde, G Salmer, J Ramaut, and D Meignant

In figure 6 , the theoretical conversion gain is shown as a function of oscillator power.

A substantial qualitative agreement with experimental results can be observed. It will
be noted here, that with increasing intermediate frequency, conversion gain decreases.
A better agreement might be obtained if image frequency effects were taken into account.
Such a study is being undertaken in our laboratory.

5. Conclusions

In this paper, experimental punch-through mixer properties have been illustrated and
compared with theoretical predictions. Good noise performances were obtained which
make the punch-through mixer attractive especially when conversion gain occurs (Kwok
et a1 1974). These performances permit the realization of simple X-band receivers.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank G Convert and D Delagebeaudeuf of the Laboratoire Central
de Recherches, Thomson-CSF for helpful discussion and for making the devices.

References

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Delagebeaudeuf D 1974 Proc. Microwave Conf.,Montreux (Surbiton : Microwave Exhibitions and Pub-
lishers) pp 178-81
Hines M E 1972 Proc. IEEE 60 1534-48
Kwok SP, Nguyen-Ba and Hadded G I 1974 Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Solid State Circuits (Philadelphia:
IEEE) pp 180-1
Sheorey UB, Lundstrom I and Ash E A 1971 Int. J. Electron. 30 19-32
Sjolund A 1973 Solid-St. Electron. 16 559-69
Snapp C P and Weissglass P 1972 IEEE Trans. Electron. Dev. ED-19 1109-18
Wright G T 1973 Solid-St. Electron. 16 903-12