Investigation of wideband and high sensitivity RF power detectors

This paper investigates the performance of wideband and high sensitivity RF power detectors. A resistive-matching, reactive-matching and distributed detectors are designed and measured. The distributed detector employs an artificial transmission-line structure. A six-stage distributed detector with a characteristic impedance of 205 Ω, is demonstrated to operate from very low frequencies to 3.2 GHz. The distributed detector has a significant improvement in the detected voltage over a wide bandwidth, as compared to the resistive- and reactive-matching detectors. Voltage sensitivity of the distributed detector is measured to be 0.35 V/mW at an input power level of 0 dBm.