Simple model to study soliton wave propagation in periodic-loaded nonlinear transmission lines

A model to study soliton propagation characteristics in nonlinear transmiss ion lines (NLTLs) periodically loaded with voltage dependent capacitances i s presented. This is based on the LC ladder equivalent network of the NLTL, and can be applied to structures where the Korteweg-de Vries approach does not hold. Specifically, the model allows to numerically obtain soliton wav eforms under arbitrary capacitance non linearity. To demonstrate its validi ty, it has been applied to structures loaded with symmetric capacitances, s imilar to those exhibited by actual heterostructure barrier varactors. The model can be of help to understand harmonic generation in monolithic NLTL-b ased frequency multipliers. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.