A V-Band GaAs Self-Synchronous MMIC Rectifier for Wireless Power Transfer Including Backscattering Capabilities

This work presents a V-band self-synchronous rectifier, including backscattering capabilities for simultaneous wireless power transfer and uplink communications, designed at the 60 GHz nominal frequency in a 0.15 μm E p-HEMT GaAs MMIC technology. The rectifier is based on the concept of time-reversal duality, which foresees the input signal applied to the drain terminal and a proper reactive feedback network to achieve phase synchronism between the drain and gate voltages. The circuit is also optimized to provide sufficient voltage control of the input reflection coefficient, making it suitable for backscattering operations. The paper reports the experimental characterization of the prototype, validating the design principle. The experimental data reports an RF-to-DC power conversion efficiency approaching 32.2 %, at 60 GHz and +1 dBm input power, when terminated with the optimum 500 Ω load. In addition, the prototype was tested in backscatter modulator operation with control signals up to 1 GHz.