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This work presents a novel power amplifier (PA) architecture employing a feedforward-like loop structure for the linearization of a load-modulated PA. The load-modulating loop combiner (LMLC) is related to a feedforward amplifier, but with the interaction between the main and auxiliary amplifiers to generate both distortion cancellation and load modulation. A brief overview of the underlying theory is presented, followed by a hardware demonstrator operating at 3.5 GHz with 42-dBm peak output power and 55% peak drain efficiency in CW. When excited by a 100-MHz LTE signal, it maintains a 3-ppt EVM improvement and a 2–5-ppt average drain efficiency improvement compared to its standalone main amplifier. 

The challenges associated with efficiently and effectively linearizing a nonlinear power amplifier (PA) over wide signal bandwidths are increasingly important to the design of 5G front-ends. Conventional digital linearization techniques are limited by absolute bandwidth, while the RF-domain nonlinear PA typically exhibits consistent fractional bandwidth even as the carrier frequency is increased. Therefore, RF-domain design techniques, like those focusing on bias-line impedance selection, are critical for overall distortion reduction. To evaluate bias-line effects, a demonstrator PA is here investigated over a range of Class-AB biases and over a range of drain inductance values. The characterization under two-tone and LTE-like modulated excitations with 10-MHz and 100-MHz instantaneous bandwidth shows that the conventional linear-efficiency trade-off in bias design does not necessarily hold true for wide instantaneous bandwidths. Additionally, techniques to synthesize a negative baseband impedance using low frequency feedback are discussed. 

This work presents a power amplifier (PA) linearization approach based on baseband feedback. The modulated signal envelope is fed back from the transistor's drain to its gate with an applied amplitude and phase shift selected to reduce the intermodulation distortion (IMD3) product at the output. The design targets IMD3 improvement near the PA's 1-dB compression point (P1dB), enabling linear operation at a higher output power level and therefore improved device periphery utilization and efficiency. This approach offers a potential linearization alternative to digital pre-distortion, which cannot be applied in some systems, without affecting the RF performance. The 850-MHz proof-of-concept prototype based on a 15-W GaN device is characterized with a two-tone measurement with 5-MHz spacing, and demonstrates 9-dB improvement of the lower IMD3 tone near the P1dB point. 

Over the last decade, the vector-apodizing phase plate (vAPP) coronagraph has been developed from concept to on-sky application in many high-contrast imaging systems on 8 m class telescopes. The vAPP is a geometric-phase patterned coronagraph that is inherently broadband, and its manufacturing is enabled only by direct-write technology for liquid-crystal patterns. The vAPP generates two coronagraphic point spread functions (PSFs) that cancel starlight on opposite sides of the PSF and have opposite circular polarization states. The efficiency, that is, the amount of light in these PSFs, depends on the retardance offset from a half-wave of the liquid-crystal retarder. Using different liquid-crystal recipes to tune the retardance, different vAPPs operate with high efficiencies ($><\#comment/>96\mathrm{\%<\#comment/>}$) in the visible and thermal infrared (0.55 µm to 5 µm). Since 2015, seven vAPPs have been installed in a total of six different instruments, including Magellan/MagAO, Magellan/MagAO-X, Subaru/SCExAO, and LBT/LMIRcam. Using two integral field spectrographs installed on the latter two instruments, these vAPPs can provide low-resolution spectra ($\mathrm{R}\sim <\#comment/>30$) between 1 µm and 5 µm. We review the design process, development, commissioning, on-sky performance, and first scientific results of all commissioned vAPPs. We report on the lessons learned and conclude with perspectives for future developments and applications.

 

A search for pair production of squarks or gluinos decaying via sleptons or weak bosons is reported. The search targets a final state with exactly two leptons with same-sign electric charge or at least three leptons without any charge requirement. The analysed data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb⁻¹of proton-proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Multiple signal regions are defined, targeting several SUSY simplified models yielding the desired final states. A single control region is used to constrain the normalisation of theWZ+ jets background. No significant excess of events over the Standard Model expectation is observed. The results are interpreted in the context of several supersymmetric models featuring R-parity conservation or R-parity violation, yielding exclusion limits surpassing those from previous searches. In models considering gluino (squark) pair production, gluino (squark) masses up to 2.2 (1.7) TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level.