Hi guys ,

There has been a question that had troubled me for quite some time now,
and I was hoping to raise it here in order to stimulate discussion and hopefully
learn something along the process:

Most of us have heard about the electromagnetic spectrum:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/EM_Spectrum_Properties_edit.svg

When it comes to electronic circuits, typically we work in either radio or microwave frequency which falls into a frequency range of roughly
DC-10GHZ...

My question arose from trying to understand what would happen if i try to build an oscillator that would oscillate at say 1 THz.

Now i am aware that whatever system i might use for generating such a signal, i will have parasitic capacitances, and in such a high frequency, i will probably leak all of my signal to ground through them , right ?

But my question is, say for the sake of discussion that somehow i was able to minimize the capacitance, shouldn't i be verging generating X-Rays then ?

Then again, if i am talking about 1Thz, my wavelength is somewhere between 1mm and 0.1mm which means that my capacitor and inductor need to be smaller than that (say for simplicity i am talking about a simple resonant LC tank for oscillation source).

What am i missing fundamentally here ? What is the limitation for going higher in frequency ?


Thanks for any thoughts,
Lenny

 

Not quite X-rays.

1THz is 1x10^12Hz which is between microwaves and infrared.
Red in the visible spectrum is about 400 THz.

X-rays are above 10,000THz.

 

MrChips, thanks for the reply,

So would it be correct to assume that if i managed to overcome the parasitic L & C, i could see heat generated from my IR emitting oscillator ?

thanks,
L.

 

A laser is an oscillator, but the frequencies are above the THz range.
From Wikipedia:

A laser which produces light by itself is technically an optical oscillator rather than an optical amplifier as suggested by the acronym. It has been humorously noted that the acronym LOSER, for "light oscillation by stimulated emission of radiation," would have been more correct.

See the Wikipedia article on terahertz radiation. Note that there are several types of oscillators mentioned.