Microwave Rectifier with Wide Input Power Range Based on Resistance/Impedance Compression Networks

In this paper, a differential resistance compression network (RCN) is proposed. It can be used to realize a differential rectifier with wide input power range, which suitable for differential rectenna application. In addition, novel single-band and dual-band complex impedance compression networks (ICNs) are proposed and applied to rectifier design. The proposed differential RCN and complex ICNs can be used to reduce the variation ranges of the rectifier's input impedance, which change with the input power level. Thus, the loss due to the impedance mismatch is reduced, and high conversion efficiency can be obtained over wider input power ranges. For validation and comparison, the differential RCN-based, the ICN-based rectifiers and their counterparts are implemented and measured. The experimental results have validated the proposed idea.