Analysis of rectifier stage number and load resistance in an RF energy harvesting circuit

Abstract

In this study, a single-stage and three-stage Dicksonrectifier circuits that wouldbeabletoperformRFenergy harvesting were proposed. Operating frequencywas selected as 1 GHz. The highest efficiency valuewas obtained at 7 dBm input power. The load resis-tance values for the input power were parametricallyanalyzed and the power conversion efficiency and out-put voltage were calculated. In the cases where the bestperformance was obtained, while a maximum powerconversion efficiency of 70.5% was obtained in thesingle-stage Dickson circuit, maximum 77% efficiencywas obtained in the three-stage circuit. In addition, inthe cases where the highest efficiency was observed,the load resistance values were calculated as 5590 and14 610Ωat the single stage and three stages, respec-tively. The load resistance value used to obtain higherefficiency values in the three-stage circuit is increas-ing. Moreover, it was observed that as the number ofstages increased, the output voltage also increased lin-early. The maximum output voltage which was 1.8 Vin the single-stage was measured as ~5.16 V in three-stages.