2DEG Hot Electron Microbolometer

For Millimeter and Sub-millimeter Wavelength

Heterodyne Sensing

by

Kai Wang

January 2011

A dissertation submitted to

the faculty of the Graduate School of

the University at Buffalo, State University of New York

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

                                                         Department of Electrical Engineering

Acknowledgements

First of all, I am heartily thankful to my supervisor, Dr. Vladimir Mitin, whose encouragement, guidance and support from the initial to the final stage of my PhD studies enabled me to develop a solid understanding of the project, overcome all the obstacles in the research, and finally finish this dissertation. Without his insightful advices and persistent help, this dissertation would not have been possible.

     I want to take this chance to thank my PhD committee members: Dr. Athos Petrou, Dr. Natalia Litchinitser, and Dr. Wayne A. Anderson, for their motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge, which help me in all the time of completion of the research and writing of this dissertation. I am also grateful to Dr. Andrei Sergeev, for his continuous support during this whole project. I always enjoyed the interesting discussions with him on topics such as why GaN has higher carrier concentration than GaAs, or how China’s economy will affect the world in the next ten years. Deep appreciations go to Dr. Andrey Muraviev (RPI), Dr. Matthew Bell (NJSU-Rutgers), and Dr. Teng-Yin Lin (IBM), who are great researchers and awesome friends.

     I am convinced that research should be done in a fun and stimulating environment. I was fortunate enough to join a wonderful lab where ‘isolation’ is out of question. I am indebted to all my great lab mates for their meaningful discussions, useful advices, and obscure jokes. They are Dr. Rahul Ramaswamy (Intel), Dr. Roman Olac-Vaw (Intel), Dr. Li-Hsin Chien (Texas Instrument), and J. K. Choi (future CEO of Samsung).

Lastly, I would like to sincerely thank my families. Without their endless, unconditional, and dedicated love, life bears no meaning.