Ultra-Broadband Bandpass Filter Using Linearly Tapered Coupled-Microstrip Line and Open Loop Defected Ground Structure

This brief presents a novel highly compact ultra-broadband bandpass filter (BPF) using linearly tapered coupled-microstrip line (LTC-ML) and open loop defected ground structure (OL-DGS). The filter structure consists of a LTC-ML with open-circuited stubs (OCSs) and an OL-DGS etched on the ground. The linearly tapered and tightly coupled microstrip OCS can function as two resonators, and with an associated enhanced coupling structure to OL-DGS, it leads to a very compact three-pole filter. The proposed filter also exhibits a quasi-elliptic function response, where two transmission zeros (TZ) closer to each side of the passband to improve selectivity and one TZ at higher side of the upper stopband, can be observed. An approximate in-line synthesis of the proposed third-order filter with three TZs has also been performed, which shows similar characteristics like the desired response. The simulated and measured results of the filter are in good agreement with each other, showing a wide 10 dB return loss (RL) bandwidth from 4.5 to 12 GHz, insertion loss better than 1.5 dB and group delay variation of lesser than 0.2 ns in the whole passband. Furthermore, it has a very compact size of $0.31\lambda _{g}\times 0.55\lambda _{g}$ at the central frequency of 8.25 GHz.