Design of special asymmetric cul-de-sac unit configuration high temperature superconductor filter with multi-pair of transmission zeros

A high-temperature superconductor (HTS) bandpass filter with special asymmetric cul-de-sac units (SACUs) is introduced and a compact low-radiating microstrip resonator is suggested for the filter realization. Such a filter is capable of providing better selectivity and higher out-of-band rejection and hence a decrease in adjacent-channel interference, which is of critical importance for mobile communication. This improvement of the filter characteristics results from an increase in the number of pairs of transmission zeros (TZs) on the imaginary axis on the complex plane when using the filter composed of the introduced SACUs, each providing a pair of TZs. An 11-pole filter consisting of two SACUs was fabricated using MgO substrate of 0.5 mm thickness with double-sided YBCO HTS film. Characterization of the filter at 77 K gave a central frequency of 2345 MHz, insertion loss 0.19 dB, an overall in-band return loss better than 15 dB, and an ultra-high band-edge steepness as a consequence of the two pairs of TZs. The measured characteristics are in good accord with those obtained by electromagnetic simulation.