Applied Physics Letters
First implementation of a superconducting integrated receiver at 450 GHz
V. P. Koshelets, S. V. Shitov, Lyudmila V. Filippenko, Andrey M. Baryshev, Hans Golstein, Thijs de Graauw, Willem Luinge, Harry Schaeffer, Herman van de Stadt
Abstract
An integrated quasioptical receiver consisting of a planar double dipole antenna, superconductor-insulator-superconductor mixer and a superconducting local oscillator (LO) with matching circuits has been designed, fabricated and tested in the frequency range 360–490 GHz. A flux-flow oscillator (FFO) based on unidirectional and viscous flow of magnetic vortexes in a long Josephson tunnel junction, is employed as a local oscillator. All components of the receiver are integrated on a 4 mm×4 mm×0.2 mm crystalline quartz substrate using a single Nb–AlOx–Nb trilayer. The lowest DSB noise temperature of 470–560 K has been achieved within a frequency range of 425–455 GHz.