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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Grain Boundary Josephson Junction Harmonic Mixer Coupled With a Bowtie Loaded Meander Antenna With Zero-Bias Operation

Mei Yu, Jian Chen, Peiheng Wu, Haifeng Geng, Xiang Gao, Tao Hua, Wei Chen, Jianxin Shi, Weiwei Xu, Zhi Ning Chen, Huabing Wang

Published Nov 5, 2019• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The high-Tcsuperconducting (HTS) bicrystal YBa2Cu3O7-δ(YBCO) zero-bias-operation Josephson junction (JJ) harmonic mixer coupled with a bowtie loaded meander antenna (BLMA) is proposed and studied at 0.21 THz. When the JJ mixer coupled with the BLMA, the maximal harmonic number increases up to 146 with the conversion efficiency of -63.6 dB at the bath temperature around 4.6 K compared to a mixer coupled with a log-periodic antenna (LPA) of only a maximal harmonic number of 46 with the conversion efficiency of -71.6 dB. The mixer coupled with the BLMA has a higher order harmonic mixing with a lower local oscillator (LO) power of 1.26 dBm, which further illustrates its superiority to that coupled with a LPA with the LO power of 5.59 dBm. The experiment verifies the merits of the JJ harmonic mixer operating at zero bias as a promising device in terahertz regions.

DOI
10.1109/tasc.2019.2951120

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IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity•Dec 6, 2016•28 citations
The high-Tcsuperconducting (HTS) bicrystal YBa2Cu3O7-δ(YBCO) zero-bias-operation Josephson junction (JJ) harmonic mixer coupled with a bowtie loaded meander antenna (BLMA) is proposed and studied at 0.21 THz. When the JJ mixer coupled with the BLMA, the maximal harmonic number increases up to 146 with the conversion efficiency of -63.6 dB at the bath temperature around 4.6 K compared to a mixer coupled with a log-periodic antenna (LPA) of only a maximal harmonic number of 46 with the conversion efficiency of -71.6 dB. The mixer coupled with the BLMA has a higher order harmonic mixing with a lower local oscillator (LO) power of 1.26 dBm, which further illustrates its superiority to that coupled with a LPA with the LO power of 5.59 dBm. The experiment verifies the merits of the JJ harmonic mixer operating at zero bias as a promising device in terahertz regions.
High temperature superconducting (HTS) Josephson junction (JJ) mixers are attractive candidates in receivers for terahertz (THz) communication due to their high sensitivity, wide bandwidth, low local oscillator (LO) power requirement and high harmonic numbers. The required LO frequencies and the cost can be greatly reduced when harmonic signals can be detected at high orders (more than 100). In this paper, up to 114thharmonic mixings is presented in a HTS bicrystal YBa2Cu3O7-δ(YBCO) JJ harmonic mixer coupled with a bowtie loaded meander antenna at 0.21 THz. HTS JJs will be promising high-order harmonic mixers for THz practical applications on reception or detection at THz bands.
Abstract Josephson devices have demonstrated the capability to work as harmonic mixers at terahertz frequencies. Low temperature devices, in particular Nb–Nb point contacts have proven particularly successful. However, practical applications of these devices have been limited by the need of utilizing liquid helium. To overcome this limitation we have investigated the use of high- T c devices. In this paper, we report mixings up to the 154th harmonic at zero-bias in a series of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7−δ (YBCO) grain boundary Josephson junctions. We have integrated a meander series of three bicrystal YBCO Josephson junctions with a log-periodic antenna. When properly operated, this configuration allows to reach a harmonic number much higher than what possible with a single junction. This shows that the mixing performance benefits from the synchronous operation which also results in an improvement of dynamic range. We believe that the integration of a higher number of phase-locked junctions may further improve the mixer’s performance. Future studies should investigate the effect of higher number of junctions on the mixer performances, as well as the effect of the meander length.
In a quasi-optical system, the high temperature superconducting terahertz detector often suffers from a fundamental problem of low coupling efficiency with the terahertz signal, especially for the detector based on YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) bicrystal Josephson junction (JJ) due to a small normal-state resistance. Here, we developed a bowtie loaded meander antenna to enhance coupling efficiency. Differing from the conventional characterization confining on vector network analyzers, we applied three methods to evaluate the antenna, including the measurements of the maximal size of the first order Shapiro step under per incident power, the coupling efficiency between the antenna and the junction, and voltage responsivity. Furthermore, with simulation analysis, we propose that the inductive reactance of the YBCO bicrystal JJ is around 60 ohms under terahertz irradiation at 210 GHz, thus, the reactance is comparable as that of the antenna.
Two high-Tc superconducting (HTS) YBa2Cu3O7-δ(YBCO) grain boundary (GB) Josephson junctions in series as a harmonic mixer is investigated. The research shows that the mixer consisting of two series YBCO Josephson junctions has a larger harmonic number than that with only one junction in heterodyne mixing at zero-voltage bias. One of the advantages of the series-Josephson-junction mixer is that the total critical current is improved without sacrificing the sensitivity of the junctions in the array that makes the mixer easier to get more microwave induced-steps required by larger harmonic number. Furthermore, the underdamped YBCO GB series-Josephson-junction mixer operated at zero-bias voltage, where the zero-order Shapiro step exists, achieves mutual phase locking of the junctions in the array, resulting in an excellent mixing performance. Thus, the series-underdamp-Josephson-junction mixer with zero bias is predominant and compact in terahertz (THz) application due to its excellent performance and no dc bias supply.
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.
A high-temperature superconducting (HTS) terahertz (THz) heterodyne mixer based on a thin-film antenna-coupled YBa2Cu3O7-xstep-edge Josephson junction is presented. The frequency down-conversion from 0.6 THz to an intermediate frequency (IF) of 2 GHz was achieved using high-order harmonic mixing of a local oscillator (LO), thus removing the need to use a second THz source as the LO pumping source. The DC and RF characteristics of the harmonic mixer as well as the relationship of the IF output power versus the harmonic number were experimentally studied and compared with simulated results. Most of our measurements were made at 40 K, but we also observed stable harmonic mixing at 77 K which we believe has not been reported previously in HTS junction mixers.