Passivity and Maximum Quality Factor Assessment in Lossy 2-Port Transfer Functions

Lossy transfer functions are appealing in the design of filters and electric networks, as they can be exactly implemented by physical passive components. However, lossy techniques relax most of the constraints governing the design and thus offer many degrees of freedom but with unclear effects on realizability. This work describes first an analytical method to check whether a given 2-port matrix transfer function is passive. Moreover, for comparison purposes, a technique to assess the maximum allowed predistortion is proposed, related to the highest required quality factor.