Experimental Realization of 16-Pixel Terahertz Receiver Front-End Based on Bulk Silicon MEMS Power Divider and AlGaN/GaN HEMT Linear Detector Array

A 16-pixel terahertz (THz) receiver front-end working at room temperature was designed, built, and measured in this paper. The designed is based on the antenna-coupled AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) THz linear detector array (TeraLDA) a 16-way power divider. local oscillator (LO) signal divided by divider into 16 ways transmits to TeraLDA. Each contains planar unified antenna printed 150 μm-thick sapphire substrate fabricated heterostructure. There are silicon hemispheric lenses located TeraLDA increase responsivity of focus each lens aligned center pixels. Depending different read out circuits, could work homodyne heterodyne modes. four-stage that consists fifteen same 2-way dividers, bulk microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology achieve low insertion loss (IL). This be key component coherent focal plane imaging radar system, may play crucial role nondestructive 3D application.