PHASED ARRAY STUDY.

A high yield of 5.0 picofarad diodes having breakdown voltages in the 500 to 800 volt range were produced and assembled into the diode phase shifter modules. These diodes were found to be capable of operating to a peak power level of 6 kilowatts in reverse bias before high level limiting begins. 1000 volt diodes will increase the peak power level to 10 kilowatts. In forward bias the diodes were tested to 66 kilowatts, with no change in characteristic. The high average power capability of large area diodes was demonstrated by operating up to an average power level of 220 watts with no change in performance. The RMS phase errors of the phase shifters through all 16 steps were less than 4 degrees and the loss for several phase shifter modules was 2.0 db which included 1.0 db circuit loss. Using similar high cutoff frequency diodes in conjunction with a low loss package will produce an S-band diode phase shifter with less than 1.5 db loss. The measured array patterns of the 10 element antenna array with phase shift modules have clearly proved the capability of the diode phase shifters to perform beam scanning within a 60 scan range. Author