Over-the-Air Characterization Techniques for Antenna-Coupled Direct-Detectors at Terahertz Frequencies

Conference paper (2023)

Authors

M. Hoogelander Tera-Hertz Sensing - EEMCS
M. Alonso Del Pino Tera-Hertz Sensing - EEMCS
Nuria Llombart Tera-Hertz Sensing - EEMCS
M. Spirito Electronics - EEMCS
Research Group
Tera-Hertz Sensing (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2023 M. Hoogelander, M. Alonso Del Pino, Nuria Llombart, M. Spirito
DOI
help_outline
https://doi.org/10.1109/IMS37964.2023.10187910
Modulation Antenna array Antenna measurement Direct-detection Over-the-air measurement Terahertz imaging Wideband measurement
More Info
expand_more

Published Date

2023

Language

English

Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Microelectronics

Research Group

Tera-Hertz Sensing

Abstract

The continuous advancements in the coverage and sensitivity of terahertz direct-detector imagers places increasing constraints on the test benches needed for characterization. Already, relative differences on the order of a few decibels are observed between simulated and measured performance in the state-of-the-art literature. This contribution elaborates on our experimental strategies to maximize the characterization accuracy and precision of terahertz direct-detection imagers using a broadband, over-the-air measurement procedure. As a demonstration, four elements within a dense detector array were characterized in the WR2.2 band. By optimizing the modulation frequency in the setup for minimal impact of low-frequency noise and interference, a measurement dynamic range up to 30 dB was achieved, including the path loss over 20 cm. The hardware-to-model agreement of the characterized array is below 1 dB between 325 and 450 GHz.