Analysis and Performance of Locked-Oscillator Frequency Dividers Employing Nonlinear Elements

The locked-oscillator frequency divider is seldom used because of its inherent instability. One method of stabilizing the locked-oscillator divider is to insert certain nonlinear elements in the oscillator circuits. It is required that these elements have a voltage characteristic that is proportional to an integral root of the current through them. If this condition is met, the locked-oscillator divider can become almost completely insensitive to extreme changes in plate voltage, driving signal voltage, and driving frequency. The fact that the nonlinearity of -the elements can be described mathematically permits some analysis of the circuit nonlinear differential equations.