Transistor-level simulation of LC-tank VCO electron spin resonance detectors

Inhalt:
This paper discusses recent advances in the transistor-level simulation of voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) used as detectors for electron spin resonance (ESR) detection. Starting from a physical model that describes the VCO-spin interaction, the conventional VCO model is extended to account for the amplitude and frequency shifts induced by the magnetization associated with the spin ensemble. The proposed approach is validated using GoldenGate and SpectreRF simulations on a 130 nm CMOS prototype VCO that show very good agreements to measured data.