A Study of Ferrite Nonlinearity Evaluation from Higher Harmonic Generation Efficiency

A method to evaluate the intermodulation distortion (IMD) of a ferrite disc from the third harmonic generating efficiency is proposed. The difficulty to apply an intense RF magnetic field to the ferrite was solved by using a resonator. A test fixture was designed and assembled based on this concept. The generation of higher harmonics has been observed from this test fixture driven by an RF power amplifier. Using an input frequency of 2 GHz, data obtained from the test fixture is presented that contains new features. It is anticipated that these investigations will lead to a reduction in IMD in ferrite circulators