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IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology

3.1-THz Heterodyne Receiver Using an NbTiN Hot-Electron Bolometer Mixer and a Quantum Cascade Laser

Shoichi Shiba, Yoshihisa Irimajiri, T. Yamakura, Hiroyuki Maezawa, Norihiko Sekine, Iwao Hosako, Satoshi Yamamoto

Published Dec 6, 2011• 18 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have developed the 3.1-THz heterodyne receiver using an NbTiN Hot-Electron Bolometer (HEB) mixer and a THz Quantum Cascade Laser (THz-QCL) as a local oscillator. A quasi optical twin-slot antenna is adopted for the coupling of the RF signal with the mixer. The receiver noise temperature is measured to be 5600 K in DSB. When the optical loss is corrected, it is as low as 2100 K. This result demonstrates that the NbTiN HEB mixer works with the equivalent level of performance at 3.1 THz in comparison with the NbN HEB mixers usually employed in this frequency region.

DOI
10.1109/tthz.2011.2177704

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We have developed the 3.1-THz heterodyne receiver using an NbTiN Hot-Electron Bolometer (HEB) mixer and a THz Quantum Cascade Laser (THz-QCL) as a local oscillator. A quasi optical twin-slot antenna is adopted for the coupling of the RF signal with the mixer. The receiver noise temperature is measured to be 5600 K in DSB. When the optical loss is corrected, it is as low as 2100 K. This result demonstrates that the NbTiN HEB mixer works with the equivalent level of performance at 3.1 THz in comparison with the NbN HEB mixers usually employed in this frequency region.
We highlight the progress on NbN hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixers achieved through fruitful collaboration between SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. This includes the best receiver noise temperatures of 700 K at 1.63 THz using a twin-slot antenna mixer and 1050 K at 2.84 THz using a spiral antenna coupled HEB mixer. The mixers are based on thin NbN films on Si and fabricated with a new contact-process and-structure. By reducing their areas HEB mixers have shown an LO power requirement as low as 30 nW. Those small HEB mixers have demonstrated equivalent sensitivity as those with large areas provided the direct detection effect due to broadband radiation is removed. To manifest that a HEB based heterodyne receiver can in practice be used at arbitrary frequencies above 2 THz, we demonstrate a 2.8 THz receiver using a THz quantum cascade laser (QCL) as local oscillator.
Heterodyne receivers for applications in astronomy and planetary research need quantum limited sensitivity. In instruments which are currently build for SOFIA and Herschel superconducting hot electron bolometers (HEB) will be used to achieve this goal at frequencies above 1.4 THz. The local oscillator and the mixer are the most critical components for a heterodyne receiver operating at 3-5 THz. The design and performance of an optically pumped THz gas laser optimized for this frequency band will be presented. In order to optimize the performance for this frequency hot electron bolometer mixers with different in-plane dimensions and logarithmic-spiral feed antennas have been investigated. Their noise temperatures and beam patterns were measured. Above 3 THz the best performance was achieved with a superconducting bridge of 2.0 x 0.2 μm2 incorporated in a logarithmic spiral antenna. The DSB noise temperatures were 2700 K, 4700 K and 6400 K at 3.1 THz, 4.3 THz and 5.2 THz, respectively. The results demonstrate that the NbN HEB is very well suited as a mixer for THz heterodyne receivers up to at least 5 THz.
In this paper, we present a low noise integrated heterodyne receiver at 2.7 THz. This heterodyne receiver is based on a superconducting hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer and a low power consumption quantum cascade laser (QCL) that are both integrated on the same 4 K stage of a pulse tube cooler. We measured the noise temperature of the HEB/QCL integrated heterodyne receiver by using hot and cold blackbody loads in vacuum. The lowest double sideband receiver noise temperature is about 1000 K at 2.7 THz, and reduced to 500 K after eliminating the quasi-optical losses. In addition, the HEB/QCL integrated heterodyne receiver demonstrates an intermediate frequency (IF) noise bandwidth of 4 GHz.
We report here a sensitivity measurement of an all solid-state heterodyne receiver which uses a twin slot antenna coupled, small superconducting NbN hot electron bolometer as mixer and a semiconductor quantum cascade laser operating at 2.8 THz as local oscillator. We measure a double sideband receiver noise temperature of 3200 K at 2.8 THz and 4.2 K. We find that the optimal LO power is 33 nW measured at HEB and 1.3 /spl mu/W estimated at the QCL, much lower than the output power of the QCL. Such a receiver can be used for high-resolution spectroscopy above 2 THz and is particularly suitable for space-based observatories.
We report on the demonstration of an ultra-high-sensitivity superconducting hot-electron-bolometer (HEB) heterodyne receiver at 2.5 THz with a low-power-consumption quantum cascade laser (QCL) as its local oscillator (LO). The 2.5-THz QCL, with an electrical power dissipation of about 0.9 W in continuous wave mode, is integrated with a spiral-antenna-coupled niobium nitride HEB mixer in a single block. The mixer performance is barely affected by heat dissipation from the QCL when the receiver is cryogenically cooled either by a wet LHe Dewar or by a closed-cycle 4-K pulse-tube cooler. Measured with a vacuum setup, the heterodyne receiver exhibits a double sideband receiver noise temperature of 800 K at 2.5 THz with the IR filter contribution corrected, which is approximately 7hυ/kB. And the Allan variance time at 80-MHz noise bandwidth is found to be about 10 s when a proportional-integral-derivative controller is adopted to control the LO power.