Wide Stopband Bandpass Filter Implemented by Stepped Impedance Resonator and Multiple In-Resonator Open Stubs

Stepped impedance resonator (SIR) has been widely used for applications in wide stopband bandpass filters. However, the reported SIR wide stopband bandpass filters are limited in either stopband performance or design complexity. Here we propose an approach to improve the stopband performance and reduce the design complexity simultaneously. Two in-resonator open stubs are adopted in a SIR (with tap-feeding) to stagger the frequencies of higher-order modes (compared with other SIR) and produce two adjustable transmission zeros without affecting the fundamental properties. For a SIR filter employing such a structure, the spurious passbands are doubly deteriorated by the staggering and up to four transmission zeros. At the same time, the fundamental passband is not affected, which significantly reduces the design complexity. As a result, not only wide stopband but also high-suppression stopband can be obtained in a simple design. A prototype based on the substrate integrated coaxial line (SICL) is experimented showing an impressive stopband performance. Agreeing with the simulation well, the measured stopband is extended up to about 12 f
₀
with the suppression of 40 - 50 dB (f
₀
is the center frequency). The proposed technique could be very useful to design a bandpass filter with a wide and high-suppression stopband efficiently.