Design of a cloverleaf antenna for an antenna coupled bolometer for room temperature THz imaging

Abstract

THz-imaging enables promising applications in the medical and security domain, such as detectors for skin cancer or full-body scanners. These new possibilities arise the need for detectors in the THz frequency range. An antenna-coupled bolometer approach in a standard CMOS-SOI process, followed by a MEMS post CMOS process, is suggested to fabricate such a detector. Therefore, in this paper a cloverleaf shaped antenna design for the frequency range 0.5 THz to 1.5 THz is presented. Several design steps are shown together with measurement results regarding the influence of the MEMS process.