Application of Nonuniform Transmission Lines to Ultra Wideband Pulse Shaping

The work presented in this letter demonstrates that nonuniform transmission lines (NUTLs) can be used for pulse shaping applications in ultra wideband pulsed systems and presents an approach to their design for this application. The pulsed waveforms generated are modified Hermite polynomials and encoded pulse trains thereof and are characterised by a broad bandwidth ranging from near DC to over 10 GHz and relatively long temporal duration in the region of nanoseconds. These pulses are more mathematically complex and at least three times higher bandwidth than previously has been reported in the literature. It is also believed to be the first time that modified Hermite polynomial pulses have been generated in practice. The NUTL design approach is verified by test structures fabricated on FR4 circuit board. The results demonstrate that NUTLs, which are completely passive structures, allow generation of complex pulse shapes in applications requiring fast, transient waveforms.