Sub-Orbital Flight Demonstration of a 183/540–600 GHz Hybrid CMOS-InP and CMOS-Schottky-MEMS Limb-Sounder

Journal article (2021)

Authors

Adrian Tang University of California, California Institute of Technology
M. Alonso Del Pino Tera-Hertz Sensing - EEMCS
Mau Chung Frank Chang University of California
Yanghyo Kim Steven’s Institute of Technology
Yan Zhang University of California
Theodore James Reck Virginia Diodes Inc.
Cecile Jung-Kubiak California Institute of Technology
Deacon Nemchick California Institute of Technology
Logan Dyer California Institute of Technology
Gabriel Virbila University of California
G. Chattopadhyay California Institute of Technology
Research Group
Tera-Hertz Sensing (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2021 Adrian Tang, M. Alonso Del Pino, Yanghyo Kim, Yan Zhang, Theodore Reck, Cecile Jung-Kubiak, Deacon Nemchick, Logan Dyer, Gabriel Virbila, Goutam Chattopadhyay, Mau Chung Frank Chang
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1109/JMW.2021.3060622
Hybrid MEMS CMOS Schottky InP Limb-sounder ReckTangLE
More Info
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Published Date

2021

Language

English

Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Microelectronics

Research Group

Tera-Hertz Sensing

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of a sub-orbital flight demonstration with a 183 GHz and 540–600 GHz limb-sounding instrument aboard a stratospheric ballooncraft. The 183 GHz band provides soundings of stratospheric H 2 O and is implemented with a hybrid CMOS-InP receiver architecture which provides excellent sensitivity while remaining compact (162 g) and offering an extremely low DC power consumption (0.62 W). The 540–600 GHz channel sounds stratospheric O 3 and uses a combination of a CMOS local oscillator, GaAs Schottky mixer and micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) RF switch for calibration, again offering competitive form factor (1.4 Kg) and low DC power consumption (6.6 W) compared to prior instruments. The instrument was flown on the NASA Reck-Tang Limb-sounding Experiment (ReckTangLE) ballooncraft and performed atmospheric soundings across New Mexico and Northwestern Texas on Oct. 17 2019.