The terahertz band situates between the microwave and infrared, and is loosely defined between 100 GHz to 10 THz. In the past, this spectrum is known as ‘terahertz gap’ due to the lack of efficient sources and detectors. Terahertz technology has progressed with a rapid pace in the last decade and sees a current paradigm shift from physics to engineering. The advancement has been driven mainly by a prevalence of room-temperature electronic sources and detectors that expedite access to this frequency range. One missing link is an integrated platform to establish terahertz frontends. In this presentation, I will discuss our pioneer work on a substrateless integrated platform built from the ground up specifically for terahertz frequencies. The platform is built upon intrinsic silicon in a planar monolithic form. This allows efficiency close to 100% and low dispersion covering 40% fractional bandwidth. The effective medium concept is a key to design flexibility to circumvent structural simplicity imposed by fabrication limits. The presentation will cover latest components developed on this platform, including filters, switches, resonators, and multiplexer. At the end, I will overview our other ongoing activities in the Terahertz Engineering Laboratory.

Withawat Withayachumnankul completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electronic engineering from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL), Thailand, in 2001 and 2003, and a doctorate degree in electrical engineering with a Dean’s Commendation from the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 2010. In 2010, he was awarded a 3-year Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2015, he was a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Dr. Withayachumnankul is a Professor with the University of Adelaide, and the Leader of the Terahertz Engineering Laboratory. He has been a Visiting Researcher at Osaka University since 2017. Currently, he serves as a Track Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology. Between 2017-2018, he was the Chair of the IEEE South Australia Joint Chapter on Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT) & Antennas and Propagation (AP). He has authored and co-authored more than 100 journal publications. In recent years, he has been the lead investigator for four Australian Research Council (ARC) grants, totalling to over AUD 1.5 million. His research interests include terahertz waveguides, metasurfaces, antennas, radar, communications, metrology, and non-destructive evaluation. He is the recipient for the IRMMW-THz Society Young Scientist Award 2020.