Schottky vs Step Recovery Diodes

Hello all,

I am in the middle of making a frequency doubler. I am using schottky and SRD. I am at frequencies 5.25 GHz to 10.5 GHz. I really need good reference as to why select SRD over Schottky. The performance of my SRD based doubler is better than Schottky over input power -10 to -70 dBm.

Thanks in advance.
Really could not sleep for many nights.

Depends on your application.

Shottky diodes can be made to double or triple over a wide frequency range, but their conversion loss will always be high--at least 8 db, and typically more like 10-12 db.

Step recovery (varactor diodes) can be used with much greater conversion efficiency, possibly only 2 dB conversion loss for a doubler. But they are narrow band circuits that need to be carefully tuned. One advantage is that they can do high multiplication values, like a X10.