Microwave Diode Cartridge Impedance

In any application of a semiconductor microwave diode, the impedance of the diode cartridge plays a very important role. Two commonly made assumptions, which are quite erroneous, are that 1) the impedance of the diode cartridge consists simply of a shunt capacitance and whisker inductance, and 2) the metal-to-semiconductor junction at microwave frequencies behaves approximately as it does at 10 mc. In this paper it is shown that the impedance of the diode cartridge at microwave frequencies can be measured accurately by substituting a carbon die for the semiconductor.