Growth-rate function for the nonlinear analysis of the transient dynamics of microwave oscillators

Abstract

In this paper, a new technique is presented for the analysis of the transient dynamics of microwave oscillators. The technique makes use of a nonlinear admittance function that can be identified in commercial Harmonic Balance software. This function is included in a time-frequency domain equation governing the transient dynamics. The equation provides the growth rate function of the first harmonic amplitude, which allows an exhaustive analysis of the transient speed from the neighborhood of the dc solution to the oscillation establishment, with no need for a numerical integration, as in time domain or envelope-transient methods. The technique has been applied to predict the length of the transient towards the oscillating state of a FET oscillator at 5 GHz.