Ultrawide Bandwidth 180°-Hybrid-Coupler in Planar Technology

Abstract

A new concept of an ultrawide bandwidth 180°-hybrid-coupler is presented. The ultrawideband design approach is based on the excitation of a coplanar waveguide (CPW) mode and a coupled slot line (CSL) mode in the same double slotted planar waveguide. The coupler is suitable for realization in planar printed circuit board technology. For verification of the new concept a prototype was designed for the frequency range from 3 GHz to 11 GHz, built, and measured. The measurement results presented in this paper show a good agreement between simulation and measurement and demonstrate the very broadband performance of the new device. The demonstrated coupler with a size of 40 mm × 55 mm exhibits a fractional bandwidth of 114% centered at 7 GHz with a maximum amplitude imbalance of 0.8 dB and a maximum phase imbalance of 5°.