Wideband Molecular Spectroscopy around 250 GHz and 500 GHz with SiGe BiCMOS Transmitters and Receivers

Abstract

The millimeter-wave/terahertz frequency range is interesting for a variety of fields. For many applications, a large bandwidth and different frequency bands are required to cover many strong transitions from different molecules. We present results of spectroscopy with a compact transmitter and receiver in SiGe BiCMOS technology covering two frequency bands. Both transmitter and receiver have cross-polarized bowtie-antennas for the two frequency bands. They cover the ranges 222 GHz – 270 GHz and 444 GHz – 540 GHz and can be operated simultaneously. We characterized the transmitter and receiver in laboratory experiments and performed gas spectroscopy with methanol.