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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Dependence of noise temperature of quasi-optical superconducting hot-electron bolometer mixers on bath temperature and optical-axis displacement

Wen Zhang, Ning Li, Ling Jiang, Yuan Ren, Qijun Yao, Zhenhui Lin, Sheng‐Cai Shi, Boris M. Voronov, Gregory N Gol'tsman

Published Nov 9, 2007• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It is known that the increase of bath temperature results in the decrease of critical current of superconducting hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers owing to the depression of superconductivity, thus leading to the degradation of the mixer's sensitivity. Here we report our study on the effect of bath temperature on the heterodyne mixing performance of quasi-optical superconducting NbN HEB mixers incorporated with a two-arm log-spiral antenna. The correlation between the bath temperature, critical current, LO power requirement and noise temperature is investigated at 0.5 THz. Furthermore, the heterodyne mixing performance of quasi-optical superconducting NbN HEB mixers is examined while there is an optical-axis displacement between the center of the extended hemispherical silicon lens and the superconducting NbN HEB device, which is placed on the back of the lens. Detailed experimental results and analysis are presented.

DOI
10.1117/12.755238

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It is known that the increase of bath temperature results in the decrease of critical current of superconducting hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers owing to the depression of superconductivity, thus leading to the degradation of the mixer's sensitivity. Here we report our study on the effect of bath temperature on the heterodyne mixing performance of quasi-optical superconducting NbN HEB mixers incorporated with a two-arm log-spiral antenna. The correlation between the bath temperature, critical current, LO power requirement and noise temperature is investigated at 0.5 THz. Furthermore, the heterodyne mixing performance of quasi-optical superconducting NbN HEB mixers is examined while there is an optical-axis displacement between the center of the extended hemispherical silicon lens and the superconducting NbN HEB device, which is placed on the back of the lens. Detailed experimental results and analysis are presented.
To put space-based and airborne heterodyne instruments into operation at frequencies above 1 THz the superconducting NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) will be incorporated into heterodyne receiver as a mixer. At frequencies above 1.3 THz the sensitivity of the NbN HEB mixers outperform the one of the Schottky diodes and SIS-mixers, and the receiver noise temperature of the NbN HEB mixers increase with frequency. In this paper we present the results of the noise temperature measurements within one batch of NbN HEB mixers based on 3.5 mn thick superconducting NbN film grown on Si substrate with MgO buffer layer at the LO frequencies 2.5 THz and 3.8 THz.
The heterodyne mixing and direct detection performance of a superconducting NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) integrated with a log-spiral antenna have been thoroughly characterized. The corrected receiver noise temperature and IF gain bandwidth are approximately 800 K at 0.5 THz, 750 K at 0.85 THz and 3 GHz at its optimum bias point. In addition, both the receiver noise temperature and IF gain bandwidth were found insensitive to the bath temperature, while the bias point was fixed, in good agreement with those simulated with the hot-spot model taking account of the HEB's current-dependent resistive transition. Furthermore, the HEB's frequency response was measured by a Fourier transform spectrometer at different bias points and bath temperatures. The estimated noise equivalent power (NEP) was close to 10-13W/Hz0.5around the HEB's transition temperature.
In this paper we focus mainly on the investigation of the performance of a quasi-optical (planar log-spiral antenna) phonon-cooled NbN superconducting hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer, which is cryogenically cooled by a close-cycled 4-K cryocooler, at 500 and 850 GHz frequency bands. The mixer's noise performance, stability of IF output power, and local oscillator (LO) power requirement are characterized for three NbN superconducting HEB devices of different sizes. The transmission characteristics of Mylar and Zitex films with incidence waves of an elliptical polarization are also examined by measuring the mixer's noise temperature. The lowest receiver noise temperatures (with no corrections) of 750 and 1100 K are measured at 500 and 850 GHz, respectively. Experimental results also demonstrate that the bigger the HEB device is, the higher the stability of IF output power becomes.
A quasi-optical superconducting NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixer is measured in the frequency range of 0.5–2.5 THz for understanding of the frequency dependence of noise temperature of THz coherent detectors. It has been found that noise temperature increasing with frequency is mainly due to the coupling loss between the quasi-optical planar antenna and the superconducting HEB bridge when taking account of non-uniform distribution of high-frequency current. With the coupling loss corrected, the superconducting HEB mixer demonstrates a noise temperature nearly independent of frequency.
Heterodyne receivers for applications in astronomy need quantum limited sensitivity. In instruments which are currently under development for SOFIA or Herschel superconducting hot electron bolometers (HEB) will be used to achieve this goal at frequencies above 1.4 THz. We present results of the development of a phonon-cooled NbN HEB mixer for GREAT, the German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies, which will be flown aboard SOFIA. The mixer is a small superconducting bridge incorporated in a planar feed antenna and a hyperhemispherical lens. Mixers with logarithmic-spiral and double-slot feed antennas have been investigated with respect to their noise temperature, conversion loss, linearity and beam pattern. At 2.5 THz a double sideband noise temperature of 2200 K was achieved. The conversion loss was 17 dB. The response of the mixer was linear up to 400 K load temperature. The performance was verified by measuring an emission line of methanol at 2.5 THz. The measured linewidth is in good agreement with the linewidth deduced from pressure broadening measurements at millimeter wavelength. The results demonstrate that the NbN HEB is very well suited as a mixer for far-infrared heterodyne receivers.
In this paper, the performance of a quasi-optical phonon-cooled NbN superconducting hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer is thoroughly investigated. The variation of the receiver noise temperature and the conversion gain around 600 GHz with respect to DC bias voltage and LO pumping level has been measured. The lowest receiver noise temperature is 750 K and reduced to about 250 K after correcting the quasi-optical losses before the HEB mixer. We compared the measured results with the predictions according to one dimensional distributed hot spot model. A reasonable match between theoretical model and experiment is observed. In addition, the direct response of the HEB mixer (integrated with a log-periodic spiral antenna) is measured by using Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS). The stability of the receiver is also investigated by means of Allan variance time measurements performed with an intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth of 40 MHz.