Mitul Patel 1

Microwave Measurements
Mitul Patel

BSc (Hons) Applied Physics, St. Mary's University, Twickenham London

APH40000: Experimental Physics

NPL Portfolio

NPL is an internationally respected centre for
excellence in scientific research in measurements and
materials science. 300 labs are based at NPL, all
working on standardising measurements. NPL has
developed and maintained the primary national
measurement standards since 1900. Today NPL offers
range of resources to industries. We had a chance to
visit three of the labs to see their research. This report
is based on one of the visit on microwave
measurements.
In this visit, we learned how VNA (Vector Network
Analyser) was calibrated using a set of known standard
and then measurement of an unknown device. A VNA
is basically a device that generates a high frequency
voltage wave at a particular frequency. It then sends this
wave down a cable before measuring the amount of
wave that is reflected back. It continuously measures a
large number of frequencies. It measures both
amplitude and phase change. VNA are also called
gain-phase meter , see figure 1 and figure 2.
Figure 1. Schematic of the basic parts of a VNA
So for each device, voltage reflection co-efficient is
measured which is defined as:
VRC = reflected voltage/ incident voltage
As mentioned earlier, VNA is designed to measure
phase change because the reflected voltage wave
might have a different phase to the incident voltage
wave. If all the voltages are represented as complex
numbers then dividing one by the other will generate a
complex number for the VRC.

Figure 2. A design of a modern VNA
Calibration
A sliding load ( a device that is designed to absorb all of
the incident voltage wave) was used as part of the
calibration. The load element in a sliding load was slid
back and forth, and this changed the phase of the VRC
without any change in the magnitude. Then a graph of
sliding load on a complex plane was plotted, they
formed a different (small) circle for each different
frequency. A best-fit circle was chosen to measure
datapoints. This circles were generated using Kasas
method. Kasas method is a standard technique for
fitting circles perfectly, and apart from microwave
measurements, they are also used in computer
graphics to fit circles. It was seen that the centre of

Mitul Patel 2

these circles were very close to the centre of the
complex plane, which means zero reflection. The
difference from zero gives a good indication of the
uncertainty in this part of the measurement/calibration.
Data analysis
Six sets of data were recorded, all at the same
frequency (at 2.5GHz). Each set of data were provided
one complex number in magnitude and phase form. All
of this data were then converted into real and
imaginary form.
= ( /180)
= ( /180)
All data were plotted and it formed a perfect circle. I
could not provide the data here, as it could not fit into
this report. The radius of this fit best circle was
calculated using the following formula
= +
2
+
2


where A is the x-coordinate of the centre of the best-fit
circle (i.e. the real coordinate), B is the y-coordinate of
the centre of the circle (i.e. the imaginary coordinate).