SUMMARY This technology development was concerned with improvements in the reception and rectification of microwave power at the receiving terminal of a free-space power transmission system anymore specifically, with its application to the rectenna receiving array in the solar power satellite concept. In this system, large areas of the array operate at relatively low power density levels. A 20 percent improvement in the efficiency of elements operating at these levels was obtained by a combination of circuit and diode redesign. GaAs-W Schottky barrier diodes were designed and constructed to provide a lower voltage drop across the diodes to improve efficiency. A major accomplishment was the adaptation of previous rectenna technology to the more economically desirable two-plane construction format in which the foreplane provides the functions of collection, rectification, filtering, and DC power bussing and collection. A metal shield in the foreplane was designed to provide environmental protection and to act as a structural element in the rectenna array. Improvements in measurement and analytical techniques that were achieved were: mathematical modeling and computer simulation of the basic receiving element that checked out well with experimental data; quantitative measurement techniques for experimentally measuring diode and circuit losses; and an accounting method for balancing the microwave power input against the sum of DC power output and diode and circuit losses to achieve better confidence in efficiency measurements.
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