Field-Effect Transistor-Based Detector for Hyperspectral THz Imaging

Čibiraitė-Lukenskienė, Dovilė; Lisauskas, Alvydas; Ikamas, Kęstutis; Martín-Mateos, Pedro; Dios, Cristina de; Gallardo, Pablo Acedo; Krozer, Viktor

doi:10.23919/mikon48703.2020.9253969

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…It was fabricated using the commercial 90 nm silicon CMOS process of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, Taiwan, China) accessible through the Europractice platform. The detector has been designed to have a maximum of response at 250 GHz and was reported previously [ 26 , 27 ]. Here we will present the extended analysis of detectors’ performance.…”

Section: Fet-based Resonant Detectormentioning

confidence: 99%

All-Electronic Emitter-Detector Pairs for 250 GHz in Silicon

Ikamas

But

Cesiul

et al. 2021

Sensors

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The spread of practical terahertz (THz) systems dedicated to the telecommunication, pharmacy, civil security, or medical markets requires the use of mainstream semiconductor technologies, such as complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) lines. In this paper, we discuss the operation of a CMOS-based free space all-electronic system operating near 250 GHz, exhibiting signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with 62 dB in the direct detection regime for one Hz equivalent noise bandwidth. It combines the state-of-the-art detector based on CMOS field-effect-transistors (FET) and a harmonic voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). Three generations of the oscillator circuit are presented, and the performance characterization techniques and their improvement are explained in detail. The manuscript presents different emitter–detector pair operation modalities, including spectroscopy and imaging.

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Section: Fet-based Resonant Detectormentioning

confidence: 99%

All-Electronic Emitter-Detector Pairs for 250 GHz in Silicon

Ikamas

But

Cesiul

et al. 2021

Sensors

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“…The least sensitive are the thermal detectors, such as Thomas Keating [33] or Golay cell [22], however, they provide the biggest aperture for radiation coupling from single-pixel devices. More sensitive solutions, with the antenna aperture comparable to the focused beam spot size, are based on quasi-optical detectors with a substrate lens that account for microbolometer [20,30,31], TeraFET [29,36,45], and Schottky-diode [23,34] technologies. The last and the most sensitive detectors are based on Schottky-diodes coupled using waveguides.…”

Section: Present Terafet Development Stagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Summary of the optical NEP of measured detectors in AlGaN/GaN and CMOS technologies. Data on these detectors were published in following papers: 600 GHz detector [144], 6x7 array [143], bow-tie CMOS detector (BT) [40,144], 300 GHz detector [35,36], biquad antenna design in CMOS (D53) [38], GNQ B4 on AlGaN/GaN technology and bow-tie antenna [37].…”

Section: Broadband Thz Detectors For Spectroscopy Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this section, the proof of concept is presented of a multifrequency imaging scheme with a TeraFET. The work is also published in [35,36].…”

Section: Hyperspectral Imagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The sample before the measurement is shown on the left, after the measurement on the right. In the center -THz transmission image, the author's work presented at MIKON 2020 conference[36] x .…”

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Room-temperature passive terahertz imaging based on high sensitivity field-effect transistor detectors

Čibiraitė-Lukenskienė¹

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Terahertz (THz) technology is an emerging field that considers the radiation between microwave and far-infrared regions where the electronic and photonic technologies merge. THz generation and THz sensing technologies should fill the gap between photonics and electronics which is defined as a region where THz generation power and THz sensing capabilities are at a low technology readiness level (TRL). As one of the options for THz detection technology, field-effect transistors with integrated antennae were suggested to be used as THz detectors in the 1990s by M. Dyakonov and M. Shur from where the development of field-effect transistor-based detector began. In this work, various FET technologies are presented, such as CMOS, AlGaN/GaN, and graphene-based material systems and their further sensitivity enhancement in order to reach the performance of well-developed Schottky diode-based THz sensing technology. Here presented FET-based detectors were explored in a wide frequency range from 0.1 THz up to 5 THz in narrowband and broadband configurations. For proper implementation of THz detectors, the well-defined characterization is of high importance. Therefore, this work overviews the characterization methods, establishes various definitions of detector parameters, and summarizes the state-of-the-art THz detectors. The electrical, optical, and cryogenic characterization techniques are also presented here, as well as the best results obtained by the development of the characterization methods, namely graphene FET stabilization, low-power THz source characterization for detector calibration, and technology development for cryogenic detection. Following the discussion about the detector characterization, a wide range of THz applications, which were tested during the last four years of Ph.D. and conducted under the ITN CELTA project from HORIZON2020 program, are presented in this work. The studies began with spectroscopy applications and imaging and later developed towards hyperspectral imaging and even passive imaging of human body THz radiation. As various options for THz applications, single-pixel detectors as well as multi-pixel arrays are also covered in this work. The conducted research shows that FET-based detectors can be used for spectroscopy applications or be easily adapted for the relevant frequency range. State-of-the-art detectors considered in this work reach the resonant performance below 20 pW/√Hz at 0.3 THz and 0.5 THz, as well as 404 pW/√Hz cross-sectional NEP at 4.75 THz. The broadband detectors show NEP as low as 25 pW/√Hz at around 0.6 THz for the best AlGaN/GaN design and 25 pW/√Hz around 1 THz for the best CMOS design. As one of the most promising applications, metamaterial characterization was tested using the most sensitive devices. Furthermore, one of the single-pixel devices and a multi-pixel array were tested as an engineering solution for a radio astronomy system called GREAT in a stratosphere observatory named SOFIA. The exploration of the autocorrelation technique using FET-based devices shows the opportunity to employ such detectors for direct detection of THz pulses without an interferometric measurement setup. This work also considers imaging applications, which include near-field and far-field visualization solutions. A considerable milestone for the theory of FET technology was achieved when scanning near-field microscopy led to the visualization of plasma (or carrier density) waves in a graphene FET channel. Whereas another important milestone for the THz technology was achieved when a 3D scan of a mobile phone was performed under the far-field imaging mode. Even though the imaging was done through the phone’s plastic cover, the image displayed high accuracy and good feature recognition of the smartphone, inching the FET-based detector technology ever so close to practical security applications. In parallel, the multi-pixel array testing was carried out on 6x7 pixel arrays that have been implemented in configurable-size aperture and imaging configurations. The configurable aperture size allowed the easier detector focusing procedure and a better fit for the beam size of the incident radiation. The imaging has been tested on various THz sources and compared to the TeraSense 16x16 pixel array. The experimental results show the big advantage of the developed multi-pixel array against the used commercial technology. Furthermore, two ultra-low-power applications have been successfully tested. The application on hyper-frequency THz imaging tested in the specially developed dual frequency comb and our detector system for 300 GHz radiation with 9 spectral lines led to outstanding imaging results on various materials. The passive imaging of human body radiation was conducted using the most sensitive broadband CMOS detector with a log-spiral antenna working in the 0.1 – 1.5 THz range and reaching the optical NEP of 42 pW/√Hz. The NETD of this device reaches 2.1 K and overcomes the performance limit of passive room-temperature imaging of the human body radiation, which was less than 10 K above the room temperature. This experiment opened a completely new field that was explored before only by the multiplier chain-based or thermal detectors. ...

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Hyperspectral terahertz imaging with electro-optic dual combs and a FET-based detector

Martín-Mateos

Čibiraitė-Lukenskienė

Barreiro

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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in this paper, a terahertz hyperspectral imaging architecture based on an electro-optic terahertz dual-comb source is presented and demonstrated. in contrast to single frequency sources, this multiheterodyne system allows for the characterization of the whole spectral response of the sample in parallel for all the frequency points along the spectral range of the system. this hence provides rapid, highly consistent results and minimizes measurement artifacts. the terahertz illumination signal can be tailored (in spectral coverage and resolution) with high flexibility to meet the requirements of any particular application or experimental scenario while maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio of the measurement. Besides this, the system provides absolute frequency accuracy and a very high coherence that allows for direct signal detection without inter-comb synchronization mechanisms, adaptive acquisition, or post-processing. Using a field-effect transistor-based terahertz resonant 300 GHz detector and the raster-scanning method we demonstrate the two-dimensional hyperspectral imaging of samples of different kinds to illustrate the remarkable capabilities of this innovative architecture. A proof-of-concept demonstration has been performed in which tree leaves and a complex plastic fragment have been analyzed in the 300 GHz range with a frequency resolution of 10 GHz.

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Field-Effect Transistor-Based Detector for Hyperspectral THz Imaging

Cited by 5 publications

References 13 publications

All-Electronic Emitter-Detector Pairs for 250 GHz in Silicon

All-Electronic Emitter-Detector Pairs for 250 GHz in Silicon

Room-temperature passive terahertz imaging based on high sensitivity field-effect transistor detectors

Hyperspectral terahertz imaging with electro-optic dual combs and a FET-based detector

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