Measurements of the responsivity of FET‐based detectors of sub‐THz radiation

Abstract

This article describes a novel approach to measure responsivity of a FET-based sub-THz detector using on-wafer probes to directly feed a bare antenna-less detecting device. Thus, the approach eliminates the need to know beforehand the detector’s effective aperture, which can be a source of large variation between responsivity measurements of various FET-based detectors often cited in the literature. It seems that the presented method can be useful at making direct comparisons between responsivity of various devices (e.g., MOSFETs, HEMTs etc.). As a demonstration, the sub-THz responsivity of a pHEMT device fabricated using a commercial GaAs process has been measured in a WR-3 frequency band. Additionally, the results have been compared against data obtained using an alternative approach. The verification method consisted in integrating exactly the same device with a broad-band antenna and a carefully selected high-resistivity silicon lens and comparing its performance with that of a commercial calibrated detector based on Schottky diodes.