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

Experiments with Josephson Junctions Mixers

Gerard ter Horst, Th. de Graauw, R. A. Panhuyzen, H. Schaeffer, Th.J.M. Helmerhorst, T. M. Klapwijk, J. Kortland

Published Apr 21, 1986• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Josephson junctions (JJ) mixers have been developped and in the millimeter (185-270 GHz) and in the sub-millimeter range (345 GHz, 1000 GHz). Pointcontact devices have shown the best noise temperatures (Tsys = 420 K at 230 GHz) but are unreliable for practical operations. The developped planar junctions have gown so far competitive performance with respect to cooled Schottky barrier diode mixers e.g.. Tsys = 1600 K at 345 GHz.

DOI
10.1117/12.952317

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AIP conference proceedings•Jan 1, 1978•1 citation
Josephson junctions (JJ) mixers have been developped and in the millimeter (185-270 GHz) and in the sub-millimeter range (345 GHz, 1000 GHz). Pointcontact devices have shown the best noise temperatures (Tsys = 420 K at 230 GHz) but are unreliable for practical operations. The developped planar junctions have gown so far competitive performance with respect to cooled Schottky barrier diode mixers e.g.. Tsys = 1600 K at 345 GHz.
Point contact Josephson junctions can function as millimeter wave heterodyne mixers with conversion gain. The best results achieved thus far show a single sideband conversion gain of 1.3 and a mixer contribution to the system noise temperature of 54sup0sup 0sup0K. Both of these results are approximately 5 times better than the best published figures for cooled Schottky barrier diode mixers operated at the same frequency. The measured noise for a variety of junctions can be expressed as a universal function of the normalized rf frequency OmegaOmegaOmega = homegaomegaomega/2eI/sub c/R. It is about a factor 2 larger than the calculated noise arising from the thermal noise in the junction shunt resistance, R. The noise calculation was done for the resistively shunted junction model using an analog junction simulator. (auth)
We have recently shown that point contact Josephson junctions can function as millimeter wave heterodyne mixers with conversion gain. The best results achieved thus far show a single sideband conversion gain of 1.3 and a mixer contribution to the system noise temperature of 54K. Both of these results are ∼ 5 times better than the best published figures for cooled Schottky barrier diode mixers operated at the same frequency. The measured noise for a variety of junctions can be expressed as a universal function of the normalized rf frequency\Omega = \hbar \omega/2eI_{c}R. It is about a factor 2 larger than the calculated noise arising from the thermal noise in the junction shunt resistance R. The noise calculation was done for the resistively shunted junction model using an analog junction simulator.
We have recently shown that point contact Josephson junctions can function as millimeter wave heterodyne mixers with conversion gain. The best results achieved thus far show a single sideband conversion gain of 1.3 and a mixer contribution to the system noise temperature of 54K. Both of these results are ∼ 5 times better than the best published figures for cooled Schottky barrier diode mixers operated at the same frequency. The measured noise for a variety of junctions can be expressed as a universal function of the normalized rf frequency \Omega = \hbar \omega/2eI_{c}R . It is about a factor 2 larger than the calculated noise arising from the thermal noise in the junction shunt resistance R. The noise calculation was done for the resistively shunted junction model using an analog junction simulator.