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IEEE Microwave and Guided Wave Letters

Progress on tunerless SIS mixers for the 200-300 GHz band

Anthony R. Kerr, S.-K. Pan, A. W. Lichtenberger, Dallas M. Lea

Published Nov 1, 1992• 36 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An integrated superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer for the 200-300-GHz band with no adjustable tuning is described. A waveguide input is coupled to a coplanar mixer circuit with six individually tuned SIS junctions in series. Using the best mixer, the receiver noise temperature is 45-80 K DSB over 215-275 GHz. The mixer noise temperature at 230 GHz is 12 K DSB, and the conversion loss is 2.5 dB DSB.>

DOI
10.1109/75.165642

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A superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer is described that has a broadband integrated tuning structure. The mixer is tunable from 85-116 GHz, and a midband has a noise temperature of 6+or-6 K DSB (double-side-band) and unity DSB conversion gain. Referred to the mixer input flange, the receiver noise temperature is 9+or-6 K at midband. The integral tuning structure consists of a short two-wire transmission line stub with a quarter-wave superconducting transmission line as a DC and intermediate frequency (IF) block. Despite the relatively soft I-V curves of the two-junction arrays used in these mixers, low mixer noise temperature and conversion loss were achieved.>

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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity•Jun 1, 2003•6 citations
An integrated superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer for the 200-300-GHz band with no adjustable tuning is described. A waveguide input is coupled to a coplanar mixer circuit with six individually tuned SIS junctions in series. Using the best mixer, the receiver noise temperature is 45-80 K DSB over 215-275 GHz. The mixer noise temperature at 230 GHz is 12 K DSB, and the conversion loss is 2.5 dB DSB.>
A superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer is described that has a broadband integrated tuning structure. The mixer is tunable from 85-116 GHz, and a midband has a noise temperature of 6+or-6 K DSB (double-side-band) and unity DSB conversion gain. Referred to the mixer input flange, the receiver noise temperature is 9+or-6 K at midband. The integral tuning structure consists of a short two-wire transmission line stub with a quarter-wave superconducting transmission line as a DC and intermediate frequency (IF) block. Despite the relatively soft I-V curves of the two-junction arrays used in these mixers, low mixer noise temperature and conversion loss were achieved.>
This paper presents design and performance data for a 100-GHz waveguide superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer, which is incorporated with a twin-junction device (i.e., two identical junctions connected in parallel through a tuning inductance) and a fixed-tuned broad-band waveguide mixer mount. The 100-GHz mixer is actually developed as a prototype of the 500-GHz one. The constructed 100-GHz SIS receiver results in an overall receiver noise temperature (DSB) of less than 40 K over the frequency range from 80-120 GHz, with a minimum value of just 20 K that is four times as large as the quantum limit (i.e., 4/spl planck//spl omega//k). Such a performance is comparable or even superior to those of the best mechanically tunable waveguide SIS receivers at the same frequency band. In addition, some interesting mixing behaviors related to this two-junction device are described in detail.
The performance of a broadband SIS (superconductor-insulator-superconductor) receiver with no mechanical tuning elements was modeled and tested. The mixer mount had a broadband-waveguide-to-microstripline transition consisting of a four-step Chebyshev single-ridge transformer. The last step of the ridge connected the waveguide to a microstripline circuit. The on-chip circuit consisted of a microstripline that transmitted the RF and the local oscillator signals to the SIS mixer. Both the SIS element and the inductor had RF grounds provided by 90 degrees radial stubs. The inductor tuned out the junction capacitance to allow operation over the full frequency band. The SIS element can be a single junction or series array using Nb-AlO/sub x/-Nb trilayer tunnel junctions with areas as small as 0.5 mu m/sup 2/ and V/sub m/(2 mV)=39 mV. Preliminary results indicated a DSB receiver noise temperature of 65-80 K across the band measured at 4.4 K with an internal cryogenic RF hot/cold source and with T/sub if/=21 K. With another device, a mixer noise temperature of 35 K at 100 GHz was achieved, increasing to 45 K at 79.5 and 110 GHz. Coupled mixer gain of up to +3 dB and negative dynamic resistance on the first photon step were observed. The lowest noise temperature was obtained for an untuned single-junction mixer at 80 GHz: T/sub R/=41 K and T/sub M/=20 K were measured.
We present the design and the performance of a fixed-tuned, all niobium (Nb) Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) mixer covering RF frequencies from 163 to 211 GHz with 4-8 GHz IF bandwidth. The mixer uses two Nb/Al-AlOx/Nb junctions of size 3 μm2each with theRnAproduct of 30 Ω·μm2, in a twin junction configuration. An local oscillator (LO) directional coupler made of superconducting lines with slots in the ground plane is integrated on the SIS mixer chip. The isolated port of the LO coupler is terminated using a wide-band resistive load with a sheet resistance of 12 Ω/□. The SIS tuning circuitry is optimized to achieve best power match between the twin junctions and the embedding circuitry. The measurement of the double sideband mixer noise at 171 GHz shows that the receiver noise temperature is approximately 17 K, which is just 2hf/k. The estimated noise contribution from the RF loss and the IF chain at 176 GHz LO frequency is 8 K and 7.5 K respectively, resulting in a SIS mixer noise ofhf/2k. The mixer noise performance across the entire RF band varies between 19 to 25 K. This is to our knowledge the best reported noise temperature at these frequencies till now.
A Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) distributed mixer with no integrated tuning circuit has been designed for use in a fixed-tuned waveguide mixer block. This mixer employs two half-wave SIS resonators connected in series across the feed point of the waveguide circuit. By selecting appropriate dimensions for the resonators, we can obtain proper impedance matching over a reasonable input bandwidth. Since there is no lossy thin film microstrip line in front of the SIS junction, efficient power transfer from the waveguide feed to the mixer element can be achieved. A receiver noise temperature of 185 K at 650 GHz has been measured with a dual 0.33/spl times/16.8 /spl mu/m SIS resonator. The noise temperature remains below 300 K over an input bandwidth of about 10%. This design can be used at much higher frequency where the loss of tuning circuit becomes significant.
We have designed and fabricated waveguide superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) receivers at 870 GHz with NbN/AlN/NbN tunnel junctions on an MgO substrate. A waveguide probe was incorporated into the mixer chip for a waveguide-to-microstrip transition. As the tuning circuit for the SIS mixer, we designed a resonant distributed junction whose length is one wavelength and critical current density is 20 kA/cm/sup 2/. The mixing properties were calculated based on the quantum theory of mixing. The SSB mixer noise temperature should be less than 100 K and conversion gain larger than -8.0 dB in the frequency range from 840 to 920 GHz. We also observed the resonance steps of the fabricated SIS mixer. The tuning frequency was slightly higher than the designed frequency.