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Record High Frequency Achieved

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the music-to-their-ears dept.

eldavojohn writes "Researchers at UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science managed to push our control of frequencies to another level when they hit a submillimeter 324 gigahertz frequency. As any signal geek out there might tell you, this is a non-trivial task. 'With traditional 90-nanometer CMOS circuit approaches, it is virtually impossible to generate usable submillimeter signals with a frequency higher than about 190 GHz. That's because conventional oscillator circuits are nonlinear systems in which increases in frequency are accompanied by a corresponding loss in gain or efficiency and an increase in noise, making them unsuitable for practical applications.' The article also talks about the surprising applications this new technology may evolve into."

6 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. This makes me wonder ... by LaughingCoder · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... how they are able to visualize such high frequencies. How do they know they succeeded?

    --
    The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    1. Re:This makes me wonder ... by pclminion · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "High frequencies?" We're not even talking terahertz here. The frequency of VISIBLE LIGHT is about a million times higher. This frequency is "high" in the sense that it is one of the highest frequencies ever achieved with an oscillating circuit. It's nowhere near the highest frequencies humans have ever produced or measured. So how do they "visualize" these frequencies? Probably with the same techniques they use to visualize frequencies trillions of times higher?

  2. That's nothing by Koyaanisqatsi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My flashlight achieves orders of magnitude higher frequencies in a snap!

  3. Re:How they did it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You can indeed do this.
    No linear combination of terms of the form sin(a*x+b) can give you a term in sin(c*x) with c != a, but feel free to try.

    They superimposed rectified quarter-phase signals
    So that's the not-so-sine wave I was talking about. How about we mod *you* down for misrepresenting a post just so you can tear it apart and appear knowledgeable?
  4. Re:In other news, dogs in the area go berserk by s_p_oneil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What site do you think you're on? This is Slashdot, where most of the submitters can't even get a girl to accept a drink. ;-)

  5. Re:In other news, dogs in the area go berserk by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I just can't believe my previous post has an "Insightful" rating.

    I'd say "You must be new here." but obviously you aren't.

    For the record I'm happily married with kids too. Fortunately, there are women out there who can appreciate nerds for what they are.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.