Power Handling Capability of High-Q Evanescent-mode RF MEMS Resonators with Flexible Diaphragm

In this paper, we present theoretical and experimental investigations into the power handling capability of high-Q evanescent-mode RF MEMS tunable resonators based on electrostatically-actuated thin diaphragm tuner. The self-biasing of the diaphragm tuner from RF signal has been found to cause non-linear effects such as resonant frequency drift, frequency response distortion and instability. A non-linear circuit model has been proposed to predict such non-linearities and provide design guidelines for high power applications. Large signal measurement on a high-Q evanescent-mode resonator with no DC biasing shows good agreement with theoretical predictions