Fast, Accurate, Compact, Trustable, low Cost and Power (FACTCoP) sub-THz/THz Dielectric Sensor for Ubiquitous Access

快速、准确、紧凑、可靠、低成本和低功耗 (FACTCoP) 亚太赫兹/太赫兹介电传感器，实现无处不在的接入

• 批准号: 2241337
• 负责人: Qun Jane Gu
• 金额: $ 39.85万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-15 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2241337&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Fast; Accurate; Compact; Trustable; low

Dielectric constant or permittivity is an important property of materials and biological cells. The ubiquitous and fast sensing of them not only will help us better understand ourselves and surrounding environments, but can also help prevent devastating events in society, such as global pandemics, by timely detection. Ubiquitous dielectric sensing requires not only high performances such as accurate, robust, and trustworthy results, but also fast response, small form factor, low cost, low power consumption, etc., for sensors to be widely deployed in different scenarios and applications. Existing optical and electronic dielectric sensing techniques face great challenges to meet all the requirements. Therefore, this project aims to bridge the critical gap between optical sensing and electronic sensing and develop ubiquitous dielectric sensors meeting all the above requirements for daily usage. The research results of the proposed project are expected to not only directly advance ubiquitous dielectric sensing for human daily lives, but also impact the societies at large. The successfully demonstrated sub-THz/THz design techniques proposed in this project will advance knowledge and facilitate exploration of this underutilized spectrum. In the educational front, the principal investigator (PI) will broadly disseminate the research results through presentations and publications in scientific conferences and journals, as well as integrate research with education and outreach programs. The PI is committed to engaging and retaining students from underrepresented groups in engineering and STEM fields and attracting minority and female students through various local programs. The PI will continue her conscientious outreach efforts to local high schools to inspire K-12 students, especially minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged students, to join the engineering world.To materialize the overarching goal of ubiquitous access to dielectric sensors for daily lives, the proposed research will investigate fast, accurate, compact, trustable, low cost and power (FACTCoP) sub-THz/THz ring-resonator-based dielectric sensors to leverage the benefits of both high-performance optical micro-ring resonator sensors and unparalleled on-chip signal processing with THz speed from advanced semiconductor devices and circuits. It integrates three coherent major tasks enabled by new design ideas and schemes. The first task is to boost sensitivity by intensifying evanescent electromagnetic fields for enhanced wave-matter interactions through multi-dimensional sub-THz/THz slot rings and waveguides and using phase-based sensing modality. The second task is to develop a holistic noise suppression scheme to significantly reduce various noise sources, including transmitter signal phase noise, receiver flicker noise, common-mode noise, ambient noise coupling, as well as broadband thermal noise. The systematic noise suppression scheme is to improve minimum detectable signal for enhanced sensor resolution. The third task is to develop low-power, low-noise integrated signal generator in transmitter and signal detection and processing in receiver by exploring new innovative design ideas and techniques for sub-THz/THz integrated circuits and systems, such as a sub-THz/THz sub-sampling phase-locked loop on the transmitter side, multi-path noise cancellation on the receiver side. In addition to the sensor design and development, the PI and her team will also address the following key questions in their research: 1) what are the ultimate noise constraints for sub-THz/THz circuits in different noise domains? 2) with the proposed noise suppression scheme, what is the theoretically achievable sensing resolution? 3) under real system hardware implementation constraints, such as mismatches and parasitics in circuits and components, what are the practically achievable sensing resolutions?This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

介电常数或介电常数是材料和生物细胞的重要性质。对它们的无处不在的快速感知不仅有助于我们更好地了解自己和周围环境，而且还可以通过及时检测来帮助防止社会上发生破坏性事件，如全球大流行。无处不在的介质传感不仅要求传感器具有准确、稳健、可信等高性能，还要求传感器具有响应快、体积小、成本低、功耗低等特点，以便在不同的场景和应用中得到广泛的应用。现有的光学和电子介质传感技术面临着巨大的挑战，以满足所有的要求。因此，本项目旨在弥合光学传感和电子传感之间的关键差距，开发满足上述所有日常使用要求的无处不在的介电传感器。预计该项目的研究成果不仅将直接推动无处不在的介电传感在人类日常生活中的应用，而且将对整个社会产生影响。本项目中提出的成功演示的亚太赫兹/太赫兹设计技术将促进人们对这一未得到充分利用的频谱的了解和探索。在教育方面，首席研究员(PI)将通过在科学会议和期刊上发表演讲和发表文章来广泛传播研究成果，并将研究与教育和外联计划相结合。国际学生联合会致力于吸引和留住工程和STEM领域代表性不足群体的学生，并通过各种当地项目吸引少数族裔和女性学生。为了实现日常生活中无处不在的介电传感器的首要目标，拟议的研究将研究快速、准确、紧凑、可靠、低成本和低功率(FACTCoP)亚THz/THz环形谐振器介电传感器，以利用高性能光学微环谐振器传感器和先进半导体器件和电路的无与伦比的太赫兹速度片上信号处理的优势。它整合了由新的设计思想和方案实现的三项连贯的主要任务。第一项任务是通过多维亚太赫兹/太赫兹缝隙环和波导以及使用基于相位的传感方式来增强用于增强波-物质相互作用的瞬变电磁场，从而提高灵敏度。第二项任务是开发一套全面的噪声抑制方案，以显著降低各种噪声源，包括发射机信号相位噪声、接收机闪烁噪声、共模噪声、环境噪声耦合以及宽带热噪声。系统噪声抑制方案是为了提高传感器分辨率而改善最小可检测信号。第三个任务是通过探索亚太赫兹/太赫兹集成电路和系统的创新设计思想和技术，如发射端的亚太赫兹/太赫兹亚采样锁相环，接收端的多径噪声消除，开发发射机的低功耗、低噪声的集成信号发生器和接收机的信号检测与处理。除了传感器的设计和开发，PI和她的团队还将在他们的研究中解决以下关键问题：1)不同噪声域的亚THz/THz电路的最终噪声限制是什么？2)使用建议的噪声抑制方案，理论上可实现的检测分辨率是多少？3)在实际系统硬件实施限制下，如电路和组件中的失配和寄生，实际可实现的检测分辨率是什么？该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。