LO leakage in six-port modulators and demodulators and its suppression techniques

In a six-port demodulator utilizing diodes for power detection, impedance mismatch at the interface between the six-port correlator and diodes generates unwanted local oscillator (LO) leakage to the radio frequency (RF) port. A six-port modulator that uses variable reflection coefficients at specific ports to generate a modulated RF may also suffer from LO leakage if there is a static part in the reflection coefficient. It is known that LO leakage to the RF port not only generates unwanted emission of the LO signal, but also degrades the receiver system performance due to a dynamic dc offset and second-order non-linearity at the detected baseband signal. How this LO leakage appears to the RF port in six-port demodulators and modulators are analyzed. Two different approaches to suppress the LO leakage is then discussed: a) diode impedance matching and b) introduction of a γ/4 line on specific ports. The performance when γ/4 lines are used on specific ports is verified by measurement for both a demodulator and a modulator. The measurement shows high suppression of the LO leakage.