Picosecond electrical spectroscopy using monolithic GaAs circuits

This article describes an experimental apparatus for free-space mm-wave transmission measurements (spectroscopy). GaAs nonlinear transmission lines and sampling circuits are used as picosecond pulse generators and detectors, with planar monolithic bowtie antennas with associated substrate lenses used as the radiating and receiving elements. The received pulse is 270 mV amplitude and 2.4 ps rise time. Through Fourier transformation of the received pulse, 30–250 GHz measurements are demonstrated with <=0.3 dB (rms) accuracy.