Frequency discriminator utilizing a transferred electron device
AssigneeRCA Corporation
InventorFred Sterzer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A three terminal transferred electron device (TED) with a Schottky barrier gate and a series connected output circuit are connected to a bias supply which biases the TED just below threshold. A radio frequency (RF) signal of a given peak amplitude is applied to the TED gate which is biased such that the negative peak of each cycle of RF signal nucleates the domain in the TED. The resulting change in signal over a given time period at the output circuit is a measure of RF signal frequency.
Claims4
A frequency discriminator circuit responsive to an input radio frequency signal of a given amplitude for producing an output signal having a value representative of the frequency of the input signal comprising, in combination:
- a three terminal transferred electron device (TED) having an anode terminal, a cathode terminal, and a gate terminal;
- an output circuit coupled in series with said TED;
- means for applying said input signal to said gate terminal;
- and
- means coupled to said anode, cathode and gate terminals for biasing said TED such that nucleation occurs in the TED only in response to the peak in one sense of each cycle of input signal at said gate terminal whereby the signal appearing at the output circuit is a measure of input frequency.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.