Imaging front-end for thermal detection using an InP DHBT process

Paper i proceeding, 2014

This paper presents a 153-162 GHz pre-amplified power detector receiver based on a 250 nm InP/InGaAs/InP double heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) process. The front end consists of a double slot antenna followed by a five stage low noise amplifier and a detector. The receiver is characterized through measurements of its response to broadband hot and cold terminations. A simplified method is presented for calculation of the temperature resolution of the receiver from measurements of the detected DC voltage and the noise spectrum at the video output of the receiver. The calculated temperature resolution for the receiver is 2.7 K at 1 ms integration time. This work addresses the need for low cost compact solutions suitable for multi pixel thermal imaging systems.