PURE HARMONIC SUPPRESSION OF A

BANDPASS FILTER USING BINOMIALLY

DISTRIBUTED PHOTONIC BANDGAP
STRUCTURES
1

Nemai Chandra Karmakar, Senior Member, IEEE, Mohammad Nurunnabi Mollah, Student Member IEEE

Abstract- Binomially distributed photonic band gap (B-PBG)

structures are applied to a 4-section asymmetric coupled line
band pass filter (BPF) at 15 GHz for harmonics suppression.
The frequency response of the BPF on B-PBG is compared
with that for the same BPF on uniform PBGs (U-PBGs). It is
seen that B-PBG structures provide complete harmonic
suppression in both transmission and return loss responses.
BPF on B-PBGs produces 18 dB more harmonics suppression
with zero return loss at 15 GHz compared to those for the
same BPF on U-PBGs. The proposed B-PBG structure finds
promising applications for complete harmonics suppression
in filters and patch antennas and saves space and packaging
cost in HMICs and MMICs.
Index terms PBG, BPF, Binomial PBG, Harmonic
suppression.

I. INTRODUCTION

In the new millennium, the explosions of infocommunication technologies have brought many new
broadband design challenges. To meet the challenge,
designers require fulfilling more functionality per unit
volume. For multi-channel broadband operations, more
than one octave bandwidth from active and passive devices
is demanded. In broadband applications, filter banks play a
significant role in selecting required channels and rejecting
unwanted channels. Now-a-days microstrip bandpass
filters (BPFs) are heavily used in modern microwave
integrated circuits. But the performance of the broadband
system is affected by their spurious transmission in other
than fundamental frequencies. Therefore, it is imperative
to suppress the higher harmonics of the BPF.
Recently T. Itoh et al [1] proposed uniplanar compact
photonic band gap (UC-PBG) to suppress the spurious
transmission. The UC-PBG is a complex design on a 2-D
plane and occupies more space in a circuit. On the other
hand, classical circular patterned PBGs [2] are simple in
design and can be made 1-D, therefore, occupy less space
and create fewer problems in electronic packaging. It was
found that both the UC-PBG and the classical uniform
circular patterned PBG couldnt completely suppress the
spurious harmonics of a band pass filter. There is some
spurious resonance at the third harmonic return loss that
might cause radiation and interference at higher harmonic
The authors are with School of E.E.E., Nanyang Technological
University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639718, Email:
1
Enckarma@ntu.edu.sg

frequencies. To completely suppress the harmonics, we

propose non-uniform circular patterned PBGs instead of
uniform PBGs. We have investigated non-uniform circular
patterned PBG in Chebyshev and binomial distributions in
[3]. The investigation reveals that these non-uniform PBGs
suppress the passband ripples and produce distinct
stopband. These characteristics are very useful for
harmonics suppression in BPFs. In this paper we
demonstrate the enhanced performance of asymmetric
coupled-line BPF on a binomially distributed PBG (BPBG).
II. BPF DESIGN ON PLANAR PBGS
A. B-PBG Design
Fig. 1(a) shows a plan view of a binomially distributed
10-element PBG engineered 50 transmission line. The
PBG units gradually diminish in dimensions proportionally
to the coefficient of the binomial polynomial [4]. The
polynomial is:
(1+ x)m1 = 1 + (m 1)x + (m 1)(m 2) x2 + (m 1)(m 2)(m 3) x3 + ... (1)
2!

3!

In this case, m = 5 for the 10-unit PBG line. In our design

we vary the area of the PBG units proportionally to the
coefficients of the binomial polynomial as shown in Fig.
1(a). The filling factor (FF), which is the ratio of the radius
of the central unit to the period of the PBG unit, plays
significant role in the stop-bandwidth. The larger is the FF,
the larger is the stop-bandwidth, but with more passband
ripples.
B. Coupled Line Filter
A 4-section coupled line bandpass filter with 0.5 dB
equal ripple response at centre frequency of 7.5 GHz is
design. The width and gap of the two side resonators are
w1 = 0.43 mm, s = 0.2 mm, respectively. The two middle
resonators have width and gap w2 = 0.53 mm, s = 0.71
mm, respectively. The length of the coupled line section is
3.683 mm. The width of the 50 microstrip line is 0.61
mm. The filter is designed on Taconic r = 10.2 and
thickness 0.787 mm.
C. PBG Engineered Coupled Line Filter
We are implementing both U-PBG and B-PBG to form
different models of the BPF shown in Fig. 1(c)-(d). As can
be seen in Fig.1(a), the B-PBG patterns are etched on the
ground plane of a standard 50 transmission line with

GHz. The ripples near the cut-off frequencies and in the

low pass region are insignificant. Maximum return loss is
found to be 43 dB and the maximum isolation is found to
be 31 dB. This ripple free passband and stopband
responses of B-PBGs are useful in suppressing the
spurious transmission of a BPF. That will be shown in the
following results.
0
-5

S-parameters(dB)

constant lattice period (distance from centre to centre of

the any two PBG elements) to form a PBG engineered
transmission line. For B-PBGs, the central elements have
the largest radii and the radii of the adjacent elements
decrease proportionally to the square root of the amplitude
co-efficient of the distribution. Therefore, the areas of the
PBG elements vary proportionally to the co-efficient of the
PBG distribution. The design equation of PBG structures
originates from Braggs condition [5]. Three BPF models
are: (a) reference BPF shown in Fig.1(b); (b) BPF on UPBGs having FF =0.25 under all the coupled lines and
input and output 50 lines as shown in Fig. 1(c). In this
design, all the PBG elements have constant radii. (c) BPF
on B-PBGs having FF = 0.4 under two 50 lines along
with the central coupled lines. The rest two coupled lines
are loaded by U-PBGs of FF =0.25. The geometry is
shown in Fig. 1(d).

-10
-15
-20
-25
-30

S21
S11

-35
-40
-45

(a)
w2, s2
w1, s1
50 line

50 line
w1, s1

(b)

10

15

20

Frequency(GHz)
Fig.2. Measured response of binomially distributed PBG structure
with filling factor 0.4 at 9 GHz. Substrate: r =10 and h = 0.635
mm.
0

(c)

(d)
Fig.1. IE3D generated layouts of (a) Microstrip line on 10-unit BPBGs; (b) reference BPF wn = width and sn = gap of the coupled
line; (c) BPF on U-PBGs and (d) BPF on binomially distributed
PBGs. Substrate is Taconic TLX: r =10.2, and thickness = 0.635
mm.

III. RESULTS
We fabricated all the structures on Taconic substrate
TLX having dielectric constant 10.2 and thickness 0.635
mm with milling machine. For the binomially distributed
PBG engineered transmission line, the centre frequency is
selected at 9 GHz and the period is calculated to be 6.29
mm. The radius of the central circular element is 2.52 mm.
Similar design parameters are followed for U-PBG design.
The circuits are measured with a full 2-port calibration on
a HP8510C vector network analyzer. We investigate the
dispersion characteristics in terms of S-parameters vs
frequency for: (i) B-PBG transmission line, (ii) Reference
BPF, (iii) BPF on U-PBGs and (iv) BPF on B-PBGs.

A. B-PBG Transmission Line

Fig. 2 shows the S-parameters vs frequency of a 50
microstrip transmission line on 10-unit B-PBGs for FF =
0.4. As can be seen, the 20 dB (S21) rejection bandwidth is
3.71 GHz, 10 dB passband return loss bandwidth is 6.60

S-parameters(dB)

-10
-20
-30
-40

S21
S11

-50
-60
5

10

15

20

Frequency(GHz)
Fig.3. Frequency response of reference BPF. The width and gap
of the two side resonators are w1 = 0.43 mm, s = 0.2 mm,
respectively. The two middle resonators have width and gap w2 =
0.53 mm, s = 0.71 mm, respectively. The length of the coupled
line section is 3.683 mm. Substrate: r =10.2 and h = 0.635 mm.

B. Reference Coupled Line BPF

The measured frequency response of the reference BPF
is shown in Fig. 3. The presence of spurious harmonic
transmission around 15 GHz is dominant. At this
frequency maximum value of return loss (RL) is found to
be 12 dB and the insertion loss is 4 dB. At fundamental
frequency of 7.5 GHz, the maximum value of RL is 8.5
dB. No attempt was made to optimize the BPF.
C. BPF on U-PBGs
We applied U-PBGs in the ground plane of the reference
BPF to suppress harmonics at 15 GHz. The measured
frequency response is shown in Fig. 4(a). At 15 GHz, the
maximum value of RL is found to be 6.5 dB and the

transmission co-efficient is 35 dB. Although the harmonics

are suppressed at 15 GHz, the RL is still present. This
resonance can cause radiation at 15 GHz from the circuit.
At 7.5 GHz the passband selectivity is destroyed with the
maximum value of RL is 17.5 dB. Therefore, the inclusion
of U-PBGs the match at fundamental frequency has
improved and the spurious transmission is significantly
suppressed. It is worthwhile to note here that the RL plot
with UC-PBG is not produced in [1]. Since UC-PBG is a
uniform distribution, we suspect that the complete
suppression of S11 parameters was not possible. We
encourage the reader to verify the results designing a UCPBG engineered BPF.
D. BPF on B-PBGs.
Finally we tested the BPF on the B-PBG and the
measured s-parameter results are shown in Fig. 4(b). It can
be seen that the binomially distributed PBG structure
suppresses both resonance and the spurious transmission
significantly. At 15 GHz the RL is about zero dB and the
transmission co-efficient is found to be 48 dB. At 7.5 GHz,
the maximum RL is found to be 12 dB, which is more than
the reference BPF. Therefore, superior performance to that
for BPF on U-PBG is achieved.
0

IV. CONCLUSION
From the measured results of all the BPF designs
presented in the work, it can be seen that both U-PBGs and
B-PBGs can suppress the unwanted spurious transmission
in a BPF. In case of U-PBGs, the RL is suppressed by 5.5
dB and the transmission co-efficient by 31 dB at 15 GHz.
However, the selectivity of the BPF is destroyed at
fundamental frequency of 7.5 GHz with an improvement
in RL performance by 9 dB. On the other hand, at 15 GHz
binomially distributed PBG structures stem better
harmonic suppression providing the suppression of 44 dB
in transmission co-efficient and fully suppression in RL.
The RL at 7.5 GHz also improves by 3.5 dB compared to
that for the reference BPF. Therefore, binomially
distributed PBG structures find potential application in
harmonic suppression compared to the available work in
the open literature.
V. REFRENCES
[1]

[2]
[3]

S-parameters(dB)

-10
[4]

-20

[5]

-30
-40
-50
-60
5

(a)

10

15

20

15

20

S-Parameters (dB)

-10
-20
-30
-40

S21
S11

-50
-60
5

10

Frequency(GHz)

(b)
Fig. 4. PBG engineered BPFs responses on 10-element (a) UPBGs and (b) B-PBGs. The dimensions are the same as for Fig. 3.

F-R Yang, K-P Ma, Y. Qian and T. Itoh A uniplanar compact

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