Design and DRIE Process of Silicon-Based Terahertz RF Receiver Front-End Instrumentation

Based on the silicon microfabrication process, this study presents the design of a highly integrated and low-mass dual-polarization terahertz receiver, capable of simultaneous dual-polarization measurements. This receiver delivers a powerful instrument capability in a light-weight, low-power compact package which has more sensitive performance, and meets the requirements of planetary mission. The heterodyne instruments convert local oscillator (LO) and radio frequency (RF) into intermediate frequency (IF) signals through a mixer. An 640GHz Orthomode Transducer (OMT) is utilized to separate the incident dual-polarization signals, followed by a 640GHz polarization twist to align the polarization direction. The 640GHz RF orthogonal couplers, 320GHz LO orthogonal couplers, and subharmonic mixers provide sideband-separated outputs for each polarization. Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) technology is proposed for the microfabrication of the receiver on a silicon substrate.