On die antenna array for THz imaging by ISSCC and STMicroeletronics

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/06/03/2012/53140/on-die-antenna-array-for-thz-imaging.htm
Steve Bush

Tuesday 06 March 2012 09:32

Imaging far-infra-red (sub-millimetre) radiation between 300GHz and 3THz could mean seeing several millimetres under the skin or inside teeth. It can be detected as heat, but at ISSCC researchers, including a team from STMicroelectronics, described imaging it as RF radiation.

Key to this is a 32x32 array of square 80µm pixels, each dominated by a circular antenna (BW=0.6-1THz, lower arrow) built from metallisation, with two internal connections feeding anti-phase RF into a differential nmos distributed resistive detector made from a single novel 65nm n-mosfet (centre arrow).

Working in differential distributed resistive mode, said the team, allows the fet to work above its 160GHz f_T