A Hybrid THz Imaging System With a 100-Pixel CMOS Imager and a 3.25–3.50 THz Quantum Cascade Laser Frequency Comb

The terahertz frequency range beyond 3 THz has exciting potential to have a transformative impact in a wide range of applications, including chemical and biomedical sensing, spectroscopy, imaging, and short-distance wireless communication. While there have been significant advancements in silicon-based THz imagers in the frequency ranges below 1 THz, technological development beyond 3 THz has been impeded by the lack of solid-state sources in this frequency range. In addition, the design space beyond 3 THz opens up fundamentally new challenges across electronics and the electromagnetic interface. In this spectral range, the wavelength is small enough ( $\lambda _{\mathrm{ ox}}\approx \mathrm {50~~ \mu \text {m} }$ at 3 THz) that a vertical via from the top antenna layer to the detector is a distributed element (transmission line or radiator). In this letter, we follow a careful circuits-electromagnetics co-design approach toward a hybrid imaging system with a 100-pixel CMOS imager that interfaces with a THz quantum cascade laser frequency comb that spans 3.25–3.5 THz with mode spacing of 17 GHz. The array chip, while designed for an optimal operation across 2.7–2.9 THz, demonstrates an average noise equivalent power (NEP) (across pixels) of $\mathrm {1260~~pW/\sqrt {\mathrm{ Hz}}}$ between 3.25–3.5 THz and a projected NEP of $\mathrm {284~~pW/\sqrt {\mathrm{ Hz}}}$ across the design range of 2.7–2.9 THz. To the best of our knowledge, we demonstrate for the first time full THz imaging in a hybrid quantum cascade laser (QCL)–CMOS fashion. This approach allows future works to leverage both QCL and CMOS technologies to demonstrate new technological advances for systems in the 1–10 THz range.