On The Design Of Terahertz Detector Elements Based On Standard CMOS Technology

The terahertz (THz) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum isexperiencing a substantial growth in interest, with new applications in security,medicine and communications, among others, emerging at a rapid pace.Limitations in source power place stringent requirements upon THz detectordevice performance in terms of responsivity, sensitivity. As well, manyemerging applications require room temperature operation and the rigors offield deployment demand robust construction and alignment stability.Electronic devices such as HEMTs and MOSFETs detect THz radiation at highrates, the latter due to rectification of plasma waves in the device channel.Silicon MOSFETs, with high cost-efficiency, have the additional advantage ofstraightforward integration with signal processing circuit elements.In this thesis, a THz detector element used in THz imaging system basedon TSMC180nm CMOS technology is analyzed and designed. The detectorelement was made up by an on-chip antenna loaded with a novel structure ofthe Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC) and a MOSFET detector. Theantenna, which is compatible with standard CMOS technology, has a dimensionof98micro-meter and gain of3.1dBi. The MOSFET THz detector, based onthe non-resonant plasma wave rectification and employed with differentialconfiguration, has a responsivity of88V/W and a NEP of45nV/√Hz. Then animpedance matching network which achieves conjugate matching betweenantenna and MOSFET detector is designed. At last, the overall CMOS THzdetector element achieves a responsivity of160V/W and a NEP of25nV/√Hz.