Detectors, bandpass nonlinearities, and their optimization: Inversion of the Chebyshev transform

From the voltage-response characteristic of a memoryless nonlinearity the output amplitude in any harmonic zone is easily found as a function of the amplitude of a narrow-band input, but no general method has been known for inverting this (Chebyshev) transformation. The inversion is of interest because the best detector, bandpass non-linearity, or harmonic generator for various purposes, e.g., maximization of the output signal-to-noise ratio, is most readily described in terms of its amplitude-response characteristic for the desired harmonic zone. A simple integration over the amplitude-response characteristic (or describing function) is found to yield the required voltage-response curve.