Wideband Double Leaky Slot Lens Antennas in CMOS Technology at Submillimeter Wavelengths

The design and performance of two wideband double leaky slot lens antennas, suitable for integration in commercial CMOS technologies, are presented in this article. It is shown that antennas that are of leaky-wave nature are extremely suitable for CMOS integration as the impact of the metal density rules is minimized while simultaneously a dielectric lens can be efficiently illuminated. One antenna, operating over an ultrawide bandwidth from 200 to 600 GHz with a state-of-the-art simulated average efficiency of 57%, is suitable for center-fed direct detection scenarios. As a means of antenna performance verification, a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed antenna, which operates from 250 to 500 GHz with an average efficiency of 47%, is designed, fabricated, and characterized. This antenna, which potentially could be interfaced to other on-chip active elements, is fabricated and characterized in terms of S-parameters and gain patterns with excellent agreement with simulation, thanks to the use of an ad hoc quasi-optical measurement setup.