title: On-chip sub-terahertz surface plasmon polariton transmission lines in CMOS.
abstract: A low-loss and low-crosstalk surface-wave transmission line (T-line) is demonstrated at sub-THz in CMOS. By introducing periodical sub-wavelength structures onto the metal transmission line, surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) are excited and propagate signals via a strongly localized surface wave. Two coupled SPP T-lines and two quasi-TEM T-lines are both fabricated on-chip, each with a separation distance of 2.4 μm using standard 65 nm CMOS technology. Measurement results show that the SPP T-lines achieve wideband reflection coefficient lower than -14 dB and crosstalk ratio better than -24 dB, which is 19 dB lower on average than the traditional T-lines from 220 GHz to 325 GHz. The demonstrated compact and wideband SPP T-lines have shown great potential for future realization of highly dense on-chip sub-THz communications in CMOS.
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: School of Information Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University, China 210018.
authors.forename: Hao Chi
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798.
authors.forename: Chang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Information Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, Southeast University, China 210018.
authors.forename: Tie Jun
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Cui