Abstract
A design of an instrument to measure the power and shape of radio frequency (RF) pulses operating in a broad frequency range is described. The device is capable of measuring the pulse power up to 500 W of both CW and extremely short (similar to 1 mu s) RF pulses of arbitrary period.
The pulse envelope can be observed on a logarithmic scale on a corresponding instrument output using an inexpensive storage oscilloscope. The instrument consists of a coaxial measurement head, the RF processing circuits and an AD conversion and display unit.
The whole device is based on widely available integrated circuits; thus, good reproducibility and adaptability of the design is ensured. Since the construction is intended to be used in particular (but not solely) in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we found it useful to provide a demonstration of two typical usage scenarios.
Other application fields may comprise magnetic resonance imaging, radar and laser technology, power amplifier testing, etc.