Arthur Weston Lichtenberger

Terahertz Diode Arrays and Differential Probes based on Heterogeneous Integration and Silicon Micromachining

Due to the technological needs of the radio astronomy and remote sensing scientific communities, as well as emerging applications in the areas of imaging, security, and broadband communications, terahertz and submillimeter-wave electronics continues to be an area of growth and increasing interest for academic researchers, government laboratories, and industry. The recent establishment of a commercial infrastructure for test and measurement instrumentation in this spectral region has fueled this growth and the emergence of CMOS as a submillimeter-wave technology has greatly expanded access to this spectral region by providing circuit designers with a platform for realizing terahertz circuits without need for specialized fabrication facilities or processes. The continued emergence of new terahertz devices has created a need for improved approaches to packaging, integration, and measurement tools for diagnostics and characterization in this portion of the spectrum. This paper focuses on progress in two paral...

345 GHz array receiver for the Heinrich Hertz Telescope

In this paper, we present the design and construction of DesertSTAR, a seven pixel heterodyne receiver for the 345 GHz atmospheric window for operation on the Heinrich Hertz Telescope located at Mt.Graham, Arizona. The seven beams are arranged in a hexagonal close-packed pattern with one beam spacing. The instrument uses fixed tuned split-block, half- height waveguide mixers with Nb SIS junctions. The mixers have an instantaneous bandwidth of 2 GHz, centered on 5 GHz. The cryostat uses a NRAO Joule-Thompson refrigerator to cool the mixers, isolators, amplifiers and optics to 4K. The computer controlled bias system allows automated bias optimization and monitoring both locally and remotely. The instrument will take full advantage of the good 345 GHz weather at the HHT and dramatically increase scientific throughput. We expect to have first operations with seven pixels in November, 2000.