Terahertz Circuits to Enable Integrated Molecular Clocks

The paper presents the effort of embedding precision timing into silicon integrated chip platforms in the context of CubeSats-based communications, navigation, and radio science missions. The paper also discusses the fabrication and characterization of a terahertz silicon micromachined waveguide, which will serve as the gas cell inside the chip-scale molecular clocks (CSMCs) previously developed by the MIT team. This technology is a critical step for CSMCs to be feasibly integrable into aerospace electronic systems for CubeSats missions.