A Compact HTS Duplexer for Communication Application

Abstract

A compact L-band high temperature superconducting (HTS) microstrip input duplexer for satellite communication application has been developed. The duplexer has two output channels with center frequencies at 1200 and 1250 MHz, respectively. It was fabricated on a single piece of 2-in double-sided YBCO thin film on LaAlO3 substrate with a dimension of 26 × 42 mm. The duplexer consists of a T-junction and two bandpass filters, i.e., a ten-pole filter and an eight-pole filter for the two transmission channels, respectively. Both of the two HTS bandpass filters were specially designed to suppress the second-harmonic spurious passband. Moreover, an HTS bandstop filter is added to the duplexer to improve the out-of-band rejection at a special frequency band. As a result of the preceding special designs, in addition to a very low insertion loss (0.2 dB), considerably sharp band edge (21 dB/MHz), and good voltage standing wave ratio (better than 1.4:1), much deeper out-of-band rejection (more than 75 dB) can be realized in a much wider frequency range, i.e., up to 3 GHz, which is almost three times above the center frequency of the passbands. Although all the elements of the duplexer are integrated within a single-piece YBCO film and the layout is compact, excellent isolation (higher than 80 dB) between the two channels has still been achieved.