A silicon-based, fully integrated pulse electron paramagnetic resonance system for mm-wave spectroscopy

Abstract

An integrated transceiver for time-domain EPR spectroscopy is implemented using a 0.13μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The system utilizes an on-chip resonator to study time domain relaxation behavior of paramagnetic samples, i.e. materials with unpaired electron spins. The single-chip EPR spectrometer consists of an EPR resonator, 22-26GHz tunable VCO, a programmable pulse generation block, RF buffer and power amplifier, a multi-stage LNA, and down-conversion mixer all in a 2mm2-size chip area.