Passive Intermodulation on Microstrip Lines

The theory of passive intermodulation generation on printed transmission lines has been proposed. The new model for a terminated section of the transmission line with distributed nonlinear resistance has been developed and verified against the published experimental data. The closed form relation between the macroscopic nonlinear resistance and microscopic nonlinear surface resistivity of strip conductors has been obtained for microstrip lines. Effects of microstrip line width, length and matching on passive intermodulation generation have been studied in detail.