The bigger picture

Abstract

THz transistor-based room temperature detector arrays have been fabricated in 150 nm CMOS with a 6-times performance increase compared to their earlier work and good intra and inter-chip uniformity. The 5×10 pixel arrays were made by a team from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Germany as part of their aim to produce a large-scale multi-pixel THz camera at room temperature, that can be reliably fabricated at low cost.“Low performance fluctuations and a high yield are essential for large multi-pixel arrays,” said researcher Sebastian Boppel. “Our work shows that even standard CMOS processes without any additional steps are very suitable for future low cost, highly sensitive detector arrays with a very large number of pixels. This technology could therefore develop into an enabling technology, which breaks the vicious cycle of high costs preventing applications, which could drive technology further.”