Event date:
Dec 8 2020 6:00 pm

Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

Speaker(s)
Dr. Imran Mehdi
Venue
Zoom/Online
Abstract
The THz regime, loosely defined between 300 GHz and 10,000 GHz offers a challenging environment for electronics but in return provides a wealth of information in context of understanding our Universe. My group at JPL is focused on developing novel technologies, such as cryogenic detectors, silicon micromachining, planar antennas, and coherent sources that can enable electronics working in this frequency range in order to conduct ground breaking scientific research for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Fundamental questions regarding galaxy formation, star birth and decay can be investigated only with THz radios. Closer to earth, understanding the genesis of water on earth, chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere, and monitoring of our climate can only be accomplished with THz radios. We have also used THz technology to develop radars that allow for remote "pat-downs" working at hundreds of GHz. The radar imagery is eventually limited by mechanical constraints for real-time applications which can be overcome by using multi-pixel radars. This talk will present the current state of THz technology and its applications to space and radar systems.

About the speaker: Imran Mehdi (BSEE 1985. MSEE 1986 and PhD 1990, University of Michigan) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. He joined JPL in 1990 and is currently a Technical Group Supervisor leading a team of around 20 scientists/technologists in the research and development of submillimeter wave technology for space applications. His responsibilities include developing THz components, technologies and subsystems for current and future NASA missions. These devices and components were implemented on the ozone-monitoring Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument which is still operational as well as the (Microwave Instrument on Rosetta Orbiter) MIRO instrument which represents the first submillimeter wave receiver operational in deep-space. From 1999 he led the effort of developing broadband solid state sources from 200 to 2500 GHz for the Heterodyne Instrument for Far Infrared (HIFI) on the Herschel Space Observatory, a cornerstone European Space Agency mission. He is an IEEE Fellow and serves as the Editor in Chief for the IEEE Transactions on THz Science and Technology. He is recipient of a number of NASA awards including the NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal for "outstanding innovation and expertise in development and implementation of the submillimeter-wave membrane-based Schottky diodes for the HIFI Spectrometer on Herschel." His current interests include millimeter and submillimeter wave devices and technology, nanotechnology, high-frequency instrumentation, 3D Submm-wave systems, and development of compact, low-power heterodyne receivers for deep-space missions.