Experimental investigation of ultra-short microwave pulse going through PIN limiter

High-power microwave with pulse durations of tens of nanoseconds cannot effectively go through PIN limiters, due to the conductivity modulation effect of the PIN diodes. This article proposed a method of utilizing ultra-short electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) to go through the PIN limiter with a low attenuation. Due to its short pulse duration (1 ns or less), it can directly go through the limiter and inject into the low noise amplifier before the limiter responds. The influence of different frequencies and phases of ultra-short EMPs on the PIN limiters attenuation is experimentally investigated. Experimental results indicate that ultra-short mono-frequency EMPs with frequencies from 2 to 5 GHz can go through the PIN limiter with the lowest attenuation to 0.64 dB at 2 GHz. Ultra-short pulses generated by frequency-modulated pulse compression with a bandwidth ranging from 1 to 3 GHz also show a low attenuation after going through the PIN limiter. The lowest attenuation is 1.5 dB at a frequency range of 2.182-5.182 GHz. Experimental results verified the feasibility of the proposed method.