A Full-Band 500-750 GHz Transceiver Based on Discrete Schottky Diodes

In this paper we present a full-band 500-750 GHz transceiver. In this work the transmitter and receiver elements consist in two different separated modules. In the transmitter side, a full-band WR1.5 tripler based on high-performance GaAs Schottky diodes (SBDs) is used as the last element of the chain. The measurement results present a typical transmitted power of -7.5dBm in the frequency range of 500-750 GHz, with a maximum of -4.3dBm. The core element of the receiver is a low barrier WR1.5 full-band Sub-Harmonic Mixer (SHM) based on discrete Schottky diodes. The new semiconductor properties of the low barrier didoes allow the mixer to operate with minimum local oscillator (LO) power requirements, needing powers as low as 300 µW to work in optimal conditions, being 10 times lower than with traditional GaAs mixers. The receiver module also includes a 45dB gain LNA as last stage to amplify the IF signal. A SSB Conversion Loss (CL) of typically 33dB over the full band with a minimum of 19dB has been measured and validated.