Real-time CMOS terahertz camera employing plane-to-plane imaging with a focal-plane array of field-effect transistors

We present a terahertz camera working at 590 GHz at real-time frame-rates of 16 frames per second (fps). An array of 12×12 field-effect transistors has been fabricated in a 150-nm CMOS process and is used as the camera´s image sensor. The averaged single-pixel noise-equivalent-power is 43 pW/√Hz, the voltage single-pixel responsivity is 340 V/W. For an effective power of 104 μW distributed over the sensor area and a single-pixel integration time of 2.5 ms, a dynamic range of more than 10 dB for full-frame images at 33 Hz update rate is observed. The array, which does not yet contain integrated preamplifiers, serves as a test-bed for the development of heterodyne imaging also to be described in the presentation.