Broadband Parametric Impedance Matching for Small Antennas Using the Bode-Fano Limit: Improving on Chu's Limit for Loaded Small Antennas

In this work, a parametric up-converter amplifier is introduced as a wideband impedance-matching network. Chu’s limit restricts the minimum Q-factor of unloaded small antennas. However, the practical bandwidth (BW) of small antennas is defined by their loaded Q-factor. By connecting a small antenna to an amplifier with a real input impedance that is several times greater than the radiation resistance of the antenna, we propose increasing the return loss, which leads to a reduction in the loaded Q-factor and an increase in the BW. In addition, a parametric amplifier is used because, in comparison with transistor amplifiers, it offers low-noise characteristics. The gain of the low-noise parametric amplifier compensates for the loss due to the imposed mismatch. Our simulation result shows BW improvements up to 32 times can be accomplished by trading 2 dB of noise figure (NF), compared to the 15 dB suggested by Chu’s limit for a lossy antenna.