Babakhani, AydinKnightly, Edward W.2019-12-042019-12-042019-122019-12-03December 2Jamali, Babak. "Integrated Millimeter-Wave and Sub-Terahertz Pulse Receivers for Wireless Time Transfer and Broadband Sensing." (2019) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/107757">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/107757</a>.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/107757Broadband sensing and spectroscopy in millimeter-wave and sub-THz frequencies can be facilitated with CMOS integrated circuits as low-cost, compact solutions. Wireless integrated systems in the mm-wave/THz regime pave the path for various novel applications, such as high-resolution imaging, broadband spectroscopy, and high-speed communication. Particularly, generation and detection of ultra-short picosecond pulses on silicon platforms have been of interest to researchers due to enhanced tunability and bandwidth of such signals. In this dissertation, silicon-based ultra-short pulse detectors are studied with special focus on two primary applications: wireless time transfer with sub-picosecond accuracy and broadband spectroscopy and sensing. First, a self-mixing mm-wave impulse detector is introduced for high-accuracy wireless clock synchronization. Measurement results of the fabricated silicon chip demonstrate that a low-jitter sub-10GHz clock signal can be distributed among widely spaced nodes in a large-aperture array. Such a synchronized large-aperture array can enhance the angular resolution in imaging radars. Secondly, a CMOS impulse detector with center frequency of 77 GHz is presented to achieve low-jitter inter-chip wireless time transfer. This impulse detector, which includes an on-chip slot planar inverted cone antenna, is based on a three-stage divide-by-8 injection-locked frequency divider. It is shown that a three-stage divider has better input sensitivity than a single-stage divide-by-8 divider. The output of the receiver is locked to the input repetition rate with an rms jitter of 0.29 ps. A wireless time transfer test with two impulse detector chips demonstrates that a low-jitter 9.5-GHz clock is distributed among widely spaced nodes in a large-aperture array. Finally, a fully integrated coherent detector is introduced which uses a broadband frequency comb as a reference to detect mm-wave and sub-THz signals. The tunable frequency comb, which is generated by high-speed current switches, drives a passive field-effect transistor mixer to down-convert signals captured by an on-chip antenna. This system is capable of detecting any arbitrary spectrum from 50 to 280 GHz with a minimum resolution of 2 Hz. The detector circuit consumes a dc power of 34 mW, which makes it a low-power solution in comparison with conventional mm-wave/THz systems. This detector is utilized as a spectroscopic sensor to characterize different materials based on their responses to mm-wave signals.application/pdfengCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.Integrated CircuitsBroadbandDual-Comb SpectroscopyFrequency CombsReceiversPulsesMillimeter WavesTerahertzThesis2019-12-04