Effect of contact resistance of passive intermodulation distortion in microstrip lines

Abstract

An experimental investigation on the effect of the contact resistance of passive intermodulation distortion (PIM) is presented. The effect happens when the value of contact resistance changes, which leading to a variation of PIM in micostrip lines. In the measurement of the effect, the testing segment of the microstrip lines is working at the power of about 40dBm. While changing the contact resistance of the microstrip lines, there are unreasonable amplitude altered of IMD3, which draw my attention. The way of changing the contact resistance of the testing microstrip lines is presented in this paper. The result of this study demonstrates that the contact resistance is one of the aspects, which should be considered when measuring the PIM. And it provides an important new consideration for improving the precision of measuring the PIM.