Experimental Realization of Silicon Micromachined Terahertz Diplexer-Antenna Module for Heterodyne Receiver

A novel integrated silicon micromachined diplexer-antenna module for compact terahertz (THz) heterodyne receiver is proposed. The module is composed of a radio frequency (RF) antenna, a local oscillator (LO) antenna, and a waveguide diplexer which are realized by using the silicon micromachining technology and stacking nine equal-thickness layers. The corrugated conical horn antenna and quasi-diagonal horn antenna are applied as the RF- and LO-antenna, respectively. The diplexer is composed of two third-order waveguide bandpass filters and an H-plane T-junction, providing the isolated RF and LO channels. An experimental study is carried out in the 340 GHz band, demonstrating its application potential in THz heterodyne receiver element and array.