A CMOS Double-Demodulation Lock-in Amplifier for Stimulated Raman Scattering Signal Detection

In typical stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) signal extraction, the photodetector and lock-in amplifier are often based on separate platforms, rendering the system cumbersome and non-scalable. This paper proposes an SRS double-demodulation lock-in amplifier implemented with a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor technology that integrates two-stage 1/f noise and offset reduction circuits with a high-speed lateral electric field modulation (LEFM) photo-demodulator. A weak SRS signal is buried in a large offset with a ratio of 10−4 to 10−6; boosting such signals in a CMOS device requires an extremely high offset and noise reduction capability. The double-modulation two-stage lock-in amplifier demodulates at 40 MHz with a sampling frequency of 20 MHz, can suppress the laser and circuit’s 1/f noise to achieve higher detection sensitivity. A prototype chip fabricated using 0.11 μm CMOS image sensor technology is evaluated. Both simulation and measurement results are presented to verify the functionality and show that the differential readout structure can successfully reject laser common mode components while emphasizing its differences. The measurement results show that the double-modulation lock-in amplifier effectively suppresses the circuit’s 1/f noise by a factor of nearly two decades.