Active composite right/left-handed transmission line-based mixers

The use of composite right/left-handed transmission lines (CRLH-TLs) in distributed mixers, instead of the usual right-handed transmission lines (RH-TLs), is explored. A simplified analysis, based on lossless transmission lines and a simple model for the active devices, shows that innovative distributed mixer designs could be achieved. In particular, it is shown that it is possible to extract the IF output from different output ports, depending on the RF frequency.