Monolithic synthetic transmission-line leaky-mode antenna at THz

This paper presents a monolithic leaky EH1-mode antenna at 400 GHz, incorporating complementary-conducting-strip synthetic transmission-line structure, aimed to tackle two CMOS foundry process limiting parameters on conventional antenna design, first, the thin dielectric substrate height, at the order of 0.67% operating wavelength, and second, fulfillment of maximum/minimum metal filling foundry design rule of each metal layer. A connected array of 11 × 200 cells using the 0.13 μm 1P8M CMOS process, with a unit cell of 16 × 16 μm2, shows good agreement between measured and simulated input reflection coefficient, showing return loss of greater than 10 dB between 358 GHz and 400 GHz. Simulated results show peak antenna gain of 1.589 dB and radiation efficiency of 53.9% in the H-plane, considering all metal thickness, conductivity, and dielectric losses.