Compact quasi-elliptic microstrip lowpass filter with wide stopband

A compact microstrip lowpass filter with quasi-elliptic response is proposed. To achieve compact design, both symmetrically loaded radial-shape patches and meandered main transmission line are adopted. To realise the quasi-elliptic response and strengthen the roll-off sharpness for the filter, a coupled capacitor between adjacent radial-shape patches is introduced in interdigital form. Furthermore, the adoption of radial-shape patches and the interdigital structure can introduce both serial and parallel resonance in the circuit. Thus, a wide stopband with 7th harmonic suppression is achieved. A demonstration filter with 3 dB cutoff frequency at 1.18 GHz has been designed, fabricated and measured. Results show that a relative stopband bandwidth of 132.3 (referred to a suppression degree of 15 dB) is obtained while achieving a high figure-of-merit of 11543.