Simulation of PIM generated on the mesh reflector

A novel model is presented for the simulation of passive intermodulation (PIM) generated on the mesh reflector. The model considers the contacts between wires as the main PIM sources. The electro-thermal coupling could be the main nonlinear mechanism responsible for PIM for contacts between the wires coated by gold. The third order intermodulation level responses of 0.25*0.25 square mesh sample with different contact radius are presented, which shows that the PIM level varies for contact radius larger than 2um with two tone 2GHz and 2.1GHz irradiated. The PIM roll-off(3rd order) was found to be 3dB per dB, which shows qualitative agreement with the measured data published by previous authors.