Solid-State Terahertz Superresolution Imaging Device in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS Technology.

Breaking through diffraction limit at terahertz frequencies is currently performed with the near-field scanning optical microscopy, which suffers from low integration and sensitivity limitations. In this paper, a solid-state superresolution imaging device in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology operating around 534–562 GHz is presented. The device exhibits a single-chip integration of the complete imaging functionality, including a tunable CW illumination source, near-field sensing, and power detection with a high response of up to 9.65 \mu \textA and a noise-equivalent power of around 15–21 pW /\sqrt \text Hz at 60 kHz. Here, the stopband characteristics of a novel cross-bridged double split-ring resonator are exploited as an object-tunable transmission gate between a 3-push Colpitts oscillator and a simple HBT power detector. The resonator features a 3-D topography to achieve high-spatial confinement of the surface near-fields and is capable of resolving structural details with an estimated lateral resolution down to 10–12 \mu \textm . For a separate antenna-coupled oscillator breakout, a radiated power of up to 28.2 \mu \textW was measured. Furthermore, a 2-D raster-scanned superresolution image with a remarkable signal-to-noise ratio of 42 dB was captured for the device operating even at dc. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]