Low loss microwave power combiners/dividers

Includes bibliographical references.As many current applications require microwave solid state sources with output powers greater than that available from a single device a need for combining the power from these devices is required. N-way combiners/dividers may be used to achieve this. For high output powers these combiners/dividers must have a high combining efficiency. This dissertation describes various power combining techniques and essentially a power combiner/divider that is both planar and low loss is required. The planar structure is a requirement if efficient heat dissipation is to be achieved. Cylindrical resonant cavity structures give very high combining efficiencies, however, they are non planar and have narrow bandwidths. N-way planar combiners/dividers fabricated on microstrip provide the desired planar structure but due to the characteristics of microstrip are lossy. As a culmination of this work a low loss 8-way planar stripline combiner/divider was constructed that gave a peak combining efficiency of 94 percent which approaches the combining efficiency of 98 percent that was obtained with the cylindrical resonant cavity combiner. The former offers its broader bandwidth and planar structure as advantages