Third-order intermodulation in a micromechanical thermal mixer

A radio frequency (RF) micromechanical shell-type resonator with a resistive thermal actuator is shown to perform as a highly linear, broadband mixer and a high-quality factor post-translation (intermediate frequency) filter. The resistor is capable of frequency translation of RF carrier signals as high as 1.5 GHz to the intermediate frequency of 12.7 MHz. The thermal actuator allows electrical isolation between the input and output of the mixer-filter, dc bias independent mixing, and provides a 50-Ohm load to match the output of front-end electronics. High linearity is demonstrated in the mixer with a third-order input intercept point of +30 dBm for interferers spaced at a 50-kHz offset from the carrier frequency. A variant of the Duffing oscillator model and finite element modeling are used to analyze the origin of nonlinearities in the micromechanical system. [1503].