The nonuniform transmission line as a broadband termination

The problem of obtaining a broadband microwave termination is considered from the point of view of nonuniform transmission line theory. Attention is restricted to lines in which only the distributed shunt admittance may be varied. An optimization argument is presented which leads to the consideration of a line in which the fractional increase in admittance per wavelength in the line is constant. The nonuniform transmission line equations are solved exactly for this case, and the results are expressed in terms of readily interpretable elementary functions. It is shown that a fixed geometrical length of line can lead to an arbitrarily large effective length without destroying the match at the input. The introduction of a small loss term makes the line almost totally absorbing regardless of its termination. The line has a long-wavelength cutoff given by 4Π times the actual length of the line. If the line is short-circuited at its far end, a return loss of greater than 11.4 db is obtained at all frequencies above twice the cutoff frequency. The effect of certain practical limitations on the performance of this line is also discussed.