Journal
IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS
Volume 48, Issue 10, Pages 2296-2308Publisher
IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC
DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2013.2269856
Keywords
CMOS; detector; image sensor; imaging; lens-less; NEP; on-chip patch antenna; responsivity; Schottky barrier diode; terahertz
Categories
Funding
- C2S2 Focus Center under the Focus Center Research Program (FCRP)
- Texas Analog Center of Excellence, Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) entities
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Schottky-barrier diodes (SBD's) fabricated in CMOS without process modification are shown to be suitable for active THz imaging applications. Using a compact passive-pixel array architecture, a fully-integrated 280-GHz 4 x 4 imager is demonstrated. At 1-MHz input modulation frequency, the measured peak responsivity is 5.1 kV/W with +/-20% variation among the pixels. The measured minimum NEP is 29 pW/Hz(1/2). Additionally, an 860-GHz SBD detector is implemented by reducing the number of unit cells in the diode, and by exploiting the efficiency improvement of patch antenna with frequency. The measured NEP is 42 pW/Hz(1/2) at 1-MHz modulation frequency. This is competitive to the best reported performance of MOSFET-based pixel measured without attaching an external silicon lens (66 pW/Hz(1/2) at 1 THz and 40 pW/Hz(1/2) at 650 GHz). Given that incorporating the 280-GHz detector into an array increased the NEP by similar to 20%, the 860-GHz imager array should also have the similar NEP as that for an individual detector. The circuits were utilized in a setup that requires neither mirrors nor lenses to form THz images. These suggest that an affordable and portable fully-integrated CMOS THz imager is possible.
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