Towards a Fully Passive Ku-Band Power Limiter using RF-MEMS Technologies and Vacuum Microelectronics

The first steps leading to the development of an RF power limiter are presented in this paper. As vacuum components are supposedly able to handle very high frequency signals at high power levels, the proposed device is based on the use of cold cathode field emitters distributed along a coplanar line. Two and three-dimensional electromagnetic simulations will be compared to early characterization results at microwave frequencies and at medium power. First experiments at higher power will also be discussed.