Millimeter-Wave Band Electro-Optical Imaging System Using Polarization CMOS Image Sensor and Amplified Optical Local Oscillator Source

In this study, we developed and demonstrated a millimeter-wave electric field imaging system using an electro-optic crystal and a highly sensitive polarization measurement technique using a polarization image sensor, which was fabricated using a 0.35-mu m standard CMOS process. The polarization image sensor was equipped with differential amplifiers that amplified the difference between the 0 degrees and 90 degrees pixels. With the amplifier, the signal-to-noise ratio at low incident light levels was improved. Also, an optical modulator and a semiconductor optical amplifier were used to generate an optical local oscillator (LO) signal with a high modulation accuracy and sufficient optical intensity. By combining the amplified LO signal and a highly sensitive polarization imaging system, we successfully performed millimeter-wave electric field imaging with a spatial resolution of 30x60 mu m at a rate of 1 FPS, corresponding to 2400 pixels/s.