This paper presents a simple and reliable measurement system for characterizing the amplitude to phase modulation (AM-PM) characteristics of high frequency amplifiers and nonlinear devices. The AM-PM measurement system is based on a null detector implemented with a double balanced mixer, and requires a voltmeter and a calibrated phase shifter. A 12 W class A radio frequency power amplifier has been designed using a GaN transistor, and the AM-PM has been measured using both the method proposed in this work and the classical method with a calibrated vector network analyzer. A good correlation between both methods is observed, which validates the proposed method.
This paper presents a reliable and integrated technique for determining the resonant frequency of radio frequency resonators, which can be of interest for different purposes. The approach uses a heterodyne scheme as phase detector coupled to a voltage-controlled oscillator. The system seeks the oscillator frequency that produces a phase null in the resonator, which corresponds to the resonant frequency. A complete explanation of the technique to determine the resonant frequency is presented and experimentally tested. The method has been applied to a high-precision displacement sensor based on resonant cavity, obtaining a theoretical nanometric precision.
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