A wide-band method to measure the equivalent reflection coefficient of signal sources

This paper presents a method to measure the (equivalent) reflection coefficient of signal sources. To make highly-mismatched power detectors, are used stepped impedance lines whose scattering parameters can be accurately obtained from dimensional measurements of their structures such as the radii of the inner and outer conductors and their lengths. Since there is no need to use a Tee or splitter to make a mismatched power detector, the proposed method is more sensitive and therefore more accurate in terms of power measurements than the other methods. Also we can make use of a stepped impedance line available from a verification kit used for VNA verifications by adding inner conductors having different geometries to cover a relatively wide frequency range.