Abstract-Exploration of Terahertz Imaging with Silicon MOSFETs

• Alvydas Lisauskas, 
• Maris Bauer, 
• Sebastian Boppel, 
• Martin Mundt, 
• Bassam Khamaisi, 
• Eran Socher,
• Rimvydas Venckevičius, 
• Linas Minkevičius, 
• Irmantas Kašalynas, 
• Dalius Seliuta, 
• Gintaras Valušis, 
• Viktor Krozer, 
• Hartmut G. Roskos, 

• http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10762-013-0047-7

We summarize three lines of development and investigation of foundry-processed patch-antenna-coupled Si MOSFETs as detectors of THz radiation: (i) Exploiting the pinciple of plasma-waved-based mixing in the two-dimensional electron gas of the transistors’ channels, we demonstrate efficient detection at frequencies as high as 9 THz, much above the transit-time-limited cut-off frequencies of the devices (tens of GHz). Real-time imaging at 600 GHz with a 12 × 12 detector array is explored. (ii) Given the limited THz power usually available for applications, we explore imaging with enhanced sensitivity in heterodyne mode. We show that real-time operation of a 100 × 100-pixel heterodyne camera should be possible at 600 GHz with a better dynamic range (30 dB) than for direct power detection (20 dB), even if only a quarter-milliwatt of local-oscillator power, distributed radiatively over all detector pixels, is available. (iii) Finally, we present an all-electronic raster-scan imaging system for 220 GHz entirely based on CMOS devices, combining the CMOS detectors with an emitter circuit implemented in a 90-nm CMOS process and delivering radiation with a power on the 100- μW scale. Considering progress in the field, we anticipate that the emitter concept of oscillator-based power generation with on-chip frequency multiplication will carry well into the sub-millimeter-wave regime.