Designing Optimal Surface Currents for Efficient On-Chip mm-Wave Radiators With Active Circuitry

Abstract

Integrated antennas have become the attractive solution as the electromagnetic (EM) interface for mm-Wave and terahertz ICs. However, on-chip antennas lying at the interface between two different dielectrics (such as air and substrate) can channel most of its power into multiple nonradiative surfacewave modes, reducing efficiency drastically. In this paper, we consider the following problem: given a dielectric substrate, what is the theoretical optimal 2-D surface-current configuration that collectively suppresses surface waves and maximizes radiation efficiency with the desirable radiation pattern? This paper also discusses demonstrative examples of a circuit-EM codesign approach to realize the approximation of such current configurations. Measurement results of radiating arrays in CMOS at mm-Wave frequencies (250-300 GHz) are presented and compared with theoretical predictions.

Passive THz Optoelectronic Beamforming Network

“…THz metasurfaces, while highly flexible, currently face challenges with high losses, leading to considerable cumulative energy consumption across units response control [12,13,14,15,16]. In contrast, optoelectronic phased array methods [8,9,10,11] typically offer wider bandwidth, greater flexibility, and lower power consumption than conventional electronic phased array approaches [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The proposed passive THz OBFN in this study significantly reduces power consumption while maintaining high flexibility.…”

“…In THz beamforming research, as shown in Figure 1, various approaches utilizing diverse technologies have been investigated. Electronic beamforming in the THz domain typically employs electronic components such as phase shifters and amplifiers to modulate the phase and amplitude of signals in an array antenna [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. However, this approach is constrained by the limited bandwidth of electronic components and higher power consumption.…”

THz Prism: One-Shot Simultaneous Localization of Multiple Wireless Nodes With Leaky-Wave THz Antennas and Transceivers in CMOS

“…The measurement distance can evidently be increased with an array implementation. By arraying N elements on the centralized THz prism, the EIRP can be increased by a factor of N 2 [29]. For the same level of received SNR, the range can be enhanced by the factor of N. As an example, with a 10 × 10 element Tx array, the distance can be enhanced to 5 m, making it suitable for a wide range of applications.…”