Fully Integrated High Sensitivity Uncooled Terahertz Receiver Array

描述（由申请人提供）：这个拟议的项目是为了证明用于医疗太赫兹（THz）研究的紧凑，低成本阵列的可行性。虽然太赫兹技术还处于起步阶段，但人们正在深入研究其在医疗和制药方面的应用。太赫兹辐射是一种波长介于微波和红外光之间的电磁辐射，它向生物组织注入的能量比x射线少得多，因此引起了医学研究人员的注意。太赫兹系统可以调整以突出特定类型的组织，如皮肤癌。电磁波谱的太赫兹区域在0.1到10太赫兹之间（1太赫兹= 10[12]赫兹）。现有的太赫兹传感技术严重依赖于机械扫描的单像素或小型接收器阵列，这些技术受到其低数据速率、机械可靠性、成本、重量和馈电损失的限制。该项目提出开发一种完全集成、高灵敏度、非冷却的太赫兹传感阵列，该阵列具有独特的集成高增益、微天线系统，并与基于低功耗CMOS读出电子器件的超低噪声非冷却热电测辐射热计探测器相结合。该阵列将克服现有技术的限制，可扩展到高像素数阵列（等于或超过40K像素），并且在300K（室温）下具有小于1pW/Hz的噪声等效功率（NEP）。在这个项目中，AME将与霍尼韦尔实验室的研究人员合作，霍尼韦尔实验室是霍尼韦尔国际公司的企业研究中心，是微辐射热计研究和开发的先驱。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant: This proposed project is to prove feasibility of a compact, low-cost array for use in medical terahertz (THz) research. Though at its infancy, terahertz technology for medical and pharmaceutical applications is being intensively investigated. Terahertz radiation, electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between microwaves and infrared light, is commanding the attention of medical researchers since it injects a lot less energy into biological tissue than x-rays. Terahertz systems may be tuned to highlight specific types of tissue such as skin caners. The terahertz region of the electromagnetic spectrum is between 0.1 to 10 THz (1 THz = 10[12] Hz). Existing terahertz sensing techniques rely heavily on mechanically scanned single-pixel or small receiver arrays, which are limited by their low data rate, mechanical reliability, cost, weight and feed losses. This project proposes to develop a fully integrated, high sensitivity, uncooled, terahertz sensing array, which features a unique integrated high gain, micro antenna system coupled to ultra-low noise uncooled thermoelectric bolometer detectors fabricated on top of low-power CMOS readout electronics. The proposed array will overcome the limitations of existing technology, scale to high pixel count arrays (equal to or >40K pixels), and have a noise equivalent power (NEP) of less than 1pW/Hz at 300K (room temperature). On this project, AME will team with researchers at the Honeywell Laboratories, the corporate research center for Honeywell International, who have pioneered the research and development of microbolometers.