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International Conference on Applied Superconductivity and Electromagnetic Devices

A high-temperature superconducting step-edge Josephson junction mixer

Dan Dan Bai, Jia Du, Yu Sheng He

Published Oct 1, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the experimental evaluation of a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) Josephson mixer based on a HTS step-edge junction on MgO substrate. The fabrication, operation principle of the mixer and the experimental results of the dynamic range, linearity, and the conversion efficiency are presented.
DOI
10.1109/asemd.2013.6780746

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This letter presents both theoretical and experimental investigations on the noise and conversion performance of a high-Tc superconducting (HTS) step-edge Josephson-junction mixer at the frequency of 0.6 THz and operating temperatures of 20–40 K. Based on the Y-factor and U-factor methods, a double-sideband noise temperature of around 1000 K and a conversion gain of −3.5 dB were experimentally obtained at 20 K. At the temperature of 40 K, the measured mixer noise and conversion efficiency are around 2100 K and −10 dB, respectively. The experimental data are in good agreement with the numerical analysis results using the three-port model. A detailed performance comparison with other reported HTS terahertz mixers has confirmed the superior performance of our presented mixer device.
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A high-temperature superconducting (HTS) terahertz (THz) frequency down-converter or mixer based on a thin-film ring-slot antenna coupled YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7– x (YBCO)/MgO step-edge Josephson junction is reported. The frequency down-conversion was achieved using higher order harmonics of an applied lower frequency (19–40 GHz) local oscillator signal in the Josephson junction mixing with a THz signal of over 600 GHz, producing a 1–3 GHz intermediate frequency signal. Up to 31st order of harmonic mixing was obtained and the mixer operated stably at temperatures up to 77 K. The design details of the antenna, HTS Josephson junction mixer, the matching and isolation circuits, and the DC and RF performance evaluation are described in this paper.
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