· · · Repository hosted by TU Delft Library

This letter presents a transmitter for sub-THz radiation (up to 160GHz), which consists of a nonlinear transmission line (NLTL) and anextremely wideband (EWB) slot antenna on a silicon substrate of lowresistivity (10 Ohms•cm). The fabrication was realized using a commercially available 65 nm CMOS process. On-wafer characterization of the whole transmitter, of the standalone EWB antenna and of the standalone NLTL is presented. Reflection measurements show that the standalone EWB antenna has a −10dB impedance bandwidth in the frequency bands 75-100 GHz and 220-325 GHz, which agrees very well with the simulation results. The simulated radiation patterns are also presented, indicating that the antenna has an ominidirectional radiation performance. The antenna shows also a maximum power gain of -9.5 dBi between 90 GHz and 120 GHz. The output power of the NLTL alone and of the NLTL integrated with the EWB antenna is measured up to 178GHz.

In the United States, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death, with more than half peripheral cases. To detect early peripheral lung cancer, Computed Tomography (CT) screening has been studied in the last decade. However, due to the high false diagnosis rate of CT, further biopsy is often necessary to help confirm cancerous cases. This renders intervention with peripheral lung nodules (especially small peripheral lung cancer) difficult and time-consuming,and it is highly desirable to study and develop new on-the-spot earlier lung cancer diagnosis and treatment strategies. The objective of our study is to develop a Minimally Invasive Multimodality Image-Guided (MIMIG) interventional system to detect the lesion, confirm small peripheral lung cancer, and then potentially guide on-the-spot treatment at an early stage. Accurate image guidance and real-time optical imaging of nodules are thus the key techniques to be explored in this work. The MIMIG system uses CT images and electromagnetic (EM) tracking to help interventional radiologists target the lesion efficiently. After targeting the lesion, a fiber-optic probe coupled with optical molecular imaging contrast agents is used to confirm theexistence of cancerous tissues onsite at microscopic resolution. Using the software developed, pulmonary vessels, airways, as well as nodules can be segmented and visualized for surgical planning; the segmented results are then transformed onto the intra-procedural CT for interventional guidance using EM tracking; microendoscopy through a fiber-optic probe is performed to visualize tumor tissues. Experiments using IntegriSense 680 fluorescent contrast agent labelingv3 integrin were carried out in this study. Confirmed cancer could then be treated on-the-spot, i.e. using radio-frequency ablation (RFA). The prototype system was evaluated using rabbits with VX2 lung cancer model to evaluate the targeting accuracy, guidance efficiency, and performance of molecular imaging. Using the system,we achieved an average targeting accuracy of 3.04mm, and the IntegriSense signals within VX2 tumor were found at least two folds of normal tissue. The results suggest the great potential of applying the system on human trials in the future if an optical molecular imaging agent was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For current clinical applications, where a biopsy is unavoidable, the MIMIG system without contrast agents could also be used for biopsy guidance to improve the accuracy and efficiency.