Chip-based system for terahertz waves could enable more efficient, sensitive electronics

Boston MA (SPX) Mar 06, 2025
The use of terahertz waves, which have shorter wavelengths and higher frequencies than radio waves, could enable faster data transmission, more precise medical imaging, and higher-resolution radar.

But effectively generating terahertz waves using a semiconductor chip, which is essential for incorporation into electronic devices, is notoriously difficult.

Many current techniques can't generate waves with enough radiating power for useful applications unless they utilize bulky and expensive silicon lenses. Higher radiating power allows terahertz signals to travel farther. Such lenses, which are often larger than the chip itself, make it hard to integrate the terahertz source into an electronic device.

To overcome these limitations, MIT researchers developed a terahertz amplifier-multiplier system that achieves higher radiating power than existing devices without the need for silicon lenses.

By affixing a thin, patterned sheet of material to the back of the chip and utilizing higher-power Intel transistors, the researchers produced a more efficient, yet scalable, chip-based terahertz wave generator.

This compact chip could be used to make terahertz arrays for applications like improved security scanners for detecting hidden objects or environmental monitors for pinpointing airborne pollutants.

"To take full advantage of a terahertz wave source, we need it to be scalable. A terahertz array might have hundreds of chips, and there is no place to put silicon lenses because the chips are combined with such high density. We need a different package, and here we've demonstrated a promising approach that can be used for scalable, low-cost terahertz arrays," says Jinchen Wang, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and lead author of a paper on the terahertz radiator.

He is joined on the paper by EECS graduate students Daniel Sheen and Xibi Chen; Steven F. Nagle, managing director of the T.J. Rodgers RLE Laboratory; and senior author Ruonan Han, an associate professor in EECS, who leads the Terahertz Integrated Electronics Group. The research will be presented at the IEEE International Solid-States Circuits Conference.

Making waves

Terahertz waves sit on the electromagnetic spectrum between radio waves and infrared light. Their higher frequencies enable them to carry more information per second than radio waves, while they can safely penetrate a wider range of materials than infrared light.

One way to generate terahertz waves is with a CMOS chip-based amplifier-multiplier chain that increases the frequency of radio waves until they reach the terahertz range. To achieve the best performance, waves go through the silicon chip and are eventually emitted out the back into the open air.

But a property known as the dielectric constant gets in the way of a smooth transmission.

The dielectric constant influences how electromagnetic waves interact with a material. It affects the amount of radiation that is absorbed, reflected, or transmitted. Because the dielectric constant of silicon is much higher than that of air, most terahertz waves are reflected at the silicon-air boundary rather than being cleanly transmitted out the back.

Since most signal strength is lost at this boundary, current approaches often use silicon lenses to boost the power of the remaining signal.

The MIT researchers approached this problem differently.

They drew on an electromechanical theory known as matching. With matching, they seek to equal out the dielectric constants of silicon and air, which will minimize the amount of signal that is reflected at the boundary.

They accomplish this by sticking a thin sheet of material which has a dielectric constant between silicon and air to the back of the chip. With this matching sheet in place, most waves will be transmitted out the back rather than being reflected.

A scalable approach

They chose a low-cost, commercially available substrate material with a dielectric constant very close to what they needed for matching. To improve performance, they used a laser cutter to punch tiny holes into the sheet until its dielectric constant was exactly right.

"Since the dielectric constant of air is 1, if you just cut some subwavelength holes in the sheet, it is equivalent to injecting some air, which lowers the overall dielectric constant of the matching sheet," Wang explains.

In addition, they designed their chip with special transistors developed by Intel that have a higher maximum frequency and breakdown voltage than traditional CMOS transistors.

"These two things taken together, the more powerful transistors and the dielectric sheet, plus a few other small innovations, enabled us to outperform several other devices," he says.

Their chip generated terahertz signals with a peak radiation power of 11.1 decibel-milliwatts, the best among state-of-the-art techniques. Moreover, since the low-cost chip can be fabricated at scale, it could be integrated into real-world electronic devices more readily.

One of the biggest challenges of developing a scalable chip was determining how to manage the power and temperature when generating terahertz waves.

"Because the frequency and the power are so high, many of the standard ways to design a CMOS chip are not applicable here," Wang says.

The researchers also needed to devise a technique for installing the matching sheet that could be scaled up in a manufacturing facility.

Moving forward, they want to demonstrate this scalability by fabricating a phased array of CMOS terahertz sources, enabling them to steer and focus a powerful terahertz beam with a low-cost, compact device.

This research is supported, in part, by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Strategic University Research Partnerships Program, as well as the MIT Center for Integrated Circuits and Systems. The chip was fabricated through the Intel University Shuttle Program.