Interestingly, while the simulated (Red) results were more accurate, the actual coupler had

better performance. In the plot of S11, for instance (Top Left), the simulated red line has
matching centered at the 2 GHz matched frequency with -20 dB. The measured blue line has
better matching at 1.9 GHz (about -45 dB), but still outperforms the simulated results at 2GHz
with -25 dB.

Parameter Simulated Measured

S11 -19.518 dB -25.259 dB

S21 -1.339 dB -1.380 dB

S31 -6.239 dB -5.774 dB

S41 -24.010 dB -79.070 dB

Measured and simulated values are much closer together in the case of the rat-race coupler.
Most plots seem to fall short of the 3 GHz matching frequency, instead either outputting or
rejecting at around 2.9 GHz with the coupled (S31) and simulated rejection (S41) plots being the
only exceptions. They all hit the 3 GHz mark.

Parameter Simulated Measured

S11 -30.826 dB -32.884 dB

S21 -3.080 dB -3.278 dB

S31 -3.059 dB -3.184 dB

S41 -46.039 dB -32.574 dB

 Figure 3: Simulated phase between ports 2 and 3 of the branch line coupler (top left, red),
measured phase between ports 2 and 3 of the branch line coupler (top right, blue) and both
appearing on the same plot (bottom middle).

The branch line coupler is a 90 degree network, meaning that the phase of the outputs should
differ by 90 degrees. These plots come close by 9.996 degrees in the case of the simulated
phase and 27.654 degrees in the case of the measured phase. It is important, however, that
they only differ from each other by 7.688 degrees, meaning that there is little discrepancy
between the simulated and measured values.
The rat-race coupler is a 180 degree network, meaning that the phase of the outputs should
differ by 180 degrees. Unfortunately these plots are off by quite a bit, 54.407 degrees in the
case of the simulation, and 17.973 in the case of the measured coupler. It is also important to
note in terms of discrepancy, that the values don’t agree on the point either. If one looks at the
S11 matching graph (below), however, there is clear matching at 2.9 GHz, which is exactly
where the phases meet (above). So it is likely that the discrepancy between the simulation and
measurement is caused by the fact that the better matching occurs at 2.9 instead of 3.0 GHz.

Figure 5: S11 of the rat-race coupler, showing the 2.9 GHz matching frequency.
Figure 6: The left four are the measured S11-S41 plots for the branch line coupler. The right two
are S32 phase plots. The markers are at the positions used to fill out Table 1 (below).

The plots from figure 6 (namely, plots of S11-S14 and the phase difference between the
outputs) were used along with markers to determine the parameters asked for in question 3.
For the first four bandwidths, we used the graphs with the 0.1 GHz resolution from the
network analyzer, resulting in approximate data. However, for the phase difference bandwidth,
this resolution was much too low. To accurately get this bandwidth we performed a linear
interpolation of the data and then plotted again (Figure 6, right bottom).
 Parameter Value (Approximate)

-15 dB input matching bandwidth 0.7 GHz

-20 dB isolation bandwidth 3.0 GHz

Through ±0.5 dB amplitude variation bandwidth 0.7 GHz

Coupled ±0.5 dB amplitude variation bandwidth 0.8 GHz

±5 degree phase difference bandwidth 0.0029 GHz

Table 3: Measured parameters for the branch line coupler
 Figure 7: The measured S11-S41 plots for the rat-race coupler.

Figure 8: Plots of phase difference between ports 2 and 3, 1 and 2, and 1 and 3, respectfully, for
the rat-race coupler.
The magnitude plots of S11 - S41 of the measured rat-race coupler (Figure 7) were used to get
the magnitude parameters in Table 4. The phase plots for the rat-race couple (Figure 8) were
used to get the phase parameters in Table 4. Once again, in order to get the phase parameters
each plot needed to be interpolated to get the finer resolution necessary to establish the ±5
degree bandwidth.

Parameter Value (Approximate)

-15 dB input matching bandwidth 1.0 GHz

-20 dB isolation bandwidth 0.9 GHz

Through ±0.5 dB amplitude variation bandwidth 0.8 GHz

Coupled ±0.5 dB amplitude variation bandwidth 1.1 GHz

±5 degree phase difference bandwidth (port 2 & 3) 0.160 GHz

±5 degree phase difference bandwidth (port 1 & 2) 0.039 GHz

±5 degree phase difference bandwidth (port 1 & 3) 0.040 GHz

Table 4: Measured parameters for the rat-race coupler.