Electronic – Buffering/matching large signal to drive 5 ohm capacitive load at 13MHz (RF)

bufferimpedance-matchingRF

I built a Pierce oscillator that generates 13.5MHz @ 7Vpp signal from a V_cc=12V. But I need to drive a capacitive load of 5 ohms @ 6Vpp. I'm not sure how to do this.

First I need a buffer to prevent loading of the signal source. FETs have a large input impedance so I think it's appropriate, so I used a source-follower with a large \$R_S\$. However 7Vpp swing seems too large and leads to distortions, is there any way around this?
Using a resistor ladder to scale down the voltage first, then connecting it to the gate seems stupid.

I also tried to use a 2n3904 emitter follower, but I noticed that the emitter voltage rises fast but falls slowly and cannot keep up with the signal, therefore I got reduced and distorted output. The falling waveform looks like the RC voltage decay, to make it fall faster I have to substitute a smaller emitter resistor, therefore increasing the loading of the source.

So the first question is how to buffer the signal without significant distortions.

The next problem is how to match the impedance. If I got 7Vpp and 50 ohm of output impedance, using a transformer to match 50 to 5 ohm would require a 3:1 turns ratio. That is, my 7Vpp would become 2.3Vpp, which is too low. Even if I somehow managed to get 12Vpp (Vcc=12V), output would only become 4 Vpp, still not enough.

Is there any way around this?

Best Answer

As in your description, the FET source follower works to certain extent but with distortion. The source of the distortion is probably not exactly because the signal amplitude is too large, but a secondary effect to that. You mentioned a 12V power supply and 7V signal (assuming the signal is centered), so at the low end, the signal would be at around 2.5V. Most likely, that is too low to turn on the FET adequately.

So maybe give this a try -- bias the base of the source follower FET to around 8V with couple of resistors. Capacitively coupled the input signal to that.

As to matching the impedance, typically, the requirement to match the impedance is because the amplifier is designed to only work at a certain load impedance. That does not seem to apply in what you are doing, so there is no need to match impedance. The amplifier just needs to have enough drive (low enough impedance) to get the signal level that you want.