Terahertz frequency synthesis in CMOS for a chip-scale molecular clock

Clocks are fundamental to modern communications, navigation, and sensing systems. A recently invented chip-scale molecular clock (CSMC) based on terahertz electronics could enable low-cost, atomic-grade timekeeping for applications that are poorly served by existing clock technologies. However, the first CSMC left opportunities to optimize the terahertz electronics for a second version, for instance by improving transmitter phase noise. In this thesis, I designed millimeter-wave and terahertz circuits in CMOS for a new CSMC. A 60GHz VCO, frequency multiplier chain, and terahertz detector were designed for the high-frequency front-end of a 231GHz transceiver. This involved iterative circuit and electromagnetic optimization from schematic to layout. The circuits were integrated with other high-speed and baseband circuits on a single chip in order to synthesize a stable clock signal by locking to the 231.061GHz rotational transition line of carbonyl sulfide (16O 12C 32S) gas. The chip was taped-out in a TSMC 65nm CMOS process and measured. The results offer insights for future work on molecular clocks and terahertz electronics.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Mawdsley, James P.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ruonan Han.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123052

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123052