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Superregenerative mixers and amplifiers

  • US 3,883,809 A
  • Filed: 12/11/1970
  • Issued: 05/13/1975
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/11/1967
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A superregenerative mixer comprising, in combination, a resonant circuit having an input to receive a radio-frequency signal and having its resonant frequency substantially at the center frequency of said radio-frequency signal, a tunnel diode electrically connected to the resonant circuit, bias means electrically connected in the mixer circuit for establishing an operating point on the tunnel diode current versus voltage characteristic, quench means electrically connected to said tunnel diode and operable to move the operating point of said tunnel diode between regions of negative and positive incremental conductance at a quench frequency much less than the frequency of said signal to cause oscillations in said resonant circuit periodically to grow and decay at the quench frequency, said radio-frequency signal and high-order harmonics of the quench frequency being amplified and mixed by the tunnel diode to produce a resultant intermediate-frequency signal, and intermediate-frequency circuit means electrically connected to said tunnel diode to separate the intermediate-frequency signal generated in said tunnel diode from other signals and couple the intermediate-frequency signal thereby derived to an output, said quench means being operable to provide a quench frequency one of whose high-order harmonics differs from the radio-frequency signal by the frequency of the intermediate-frequency signal, thereby providing a plurality of quench-frequency high-order harmonics to beat with the plurality of frequency components of the amplified radio-frequency signal to produce said intermediate-frequency.

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