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Softwaretechnik-Trends

Phonon-cooled NbN HEB Mixers for Submillimeter Wavelengths

Jonathan H. Kawamura, R. Blundell, Edward Tong, G. N. Gol'tsman, Eugene M. Gershenzon, S. Cherendichenko, B. Voronov

Published Jan 1, 1997• 5 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The noise performance of receivers incorporating NbN phonon-cooled superconducting hotelectron bolometric mixers is measured from 200 GHz to 900 GHz. The mixer elements are thin-film (thickness — 4 nm) NbN with —5 to 40 1= 2 area fabricated on crystalline quartz substrates. The receiver noise temperature from 200 GHz to 900 GHz demonstrates no unexpected degradation with increasing frequency, being roughly T Rx 1-2 K GHz -1 . The best receiver noise temperatures are 410 K (DSB) at 430 GHz, 483 K at 636 GHz, and 1150 K at 800 GHz.

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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Sep 9, 1999•2 citations
The noise performance of receivers incorporating NbN phonon-cooled superconducting hotelectron bolometric mixers is measured from 200 GHz to 900 GHz. The mixer elements are thin-film (thickness — 4 nm) NbN with —5 to 40 1= 2 area fabricated on crystalline quartz substrates. The receiver noise temperature from 200 GHz to 900 GHz demonstrates no unexpected degradation with increasing frequency, being roughly T Rx 1-2 K GHz -1 . The best receiver noise temperatures are 410 K (DSB) at 430 GHz, 483 K at 636 GHz, and 1150 K at 800 GHz.
The noise performance of a receiver incorporating spiral antenna coupled NbN phonon-cooled superconducting hot electron bolometric mixer is measured from 450 GHz to 1200 GHz. The mixer element is thin (thickness —3.5 nm) NbN 1.5 p.m wide and 0.2 pm long film fabricated by lift-off e-beam lithography on high-resistive silicon substrate. The noise of the receiver temperature is 1000 K at 800-900 GHz, 1200 K at 950 GHz, and 1600 K at 1.08 THz. The required (absorbed) local-oscillator power is —20 nW.
NbN phonon-cooled superconducting hot-electron bolometric mixers with quasi-optical coupling were fabricated in a self-aligned process by means of e-beam-lithography. The mixer element consists of a 5 nm thick NbN film sputtered on a fused quartz substrate. Noise performance was investigated in the frequency range of 798 to 813 GHz for intermediate frequencies from 1.0 to 1.75 GHz. Uncorrected double sideband receiver noise temperatures of about 900 K were measured at an intermediate frequency of 1000 MHz with a 50 MHz bandpass filter. The gain bandwidth was determined by superposing two local oscillator signals and measuring the height of the discrete line at the intermediate frequency output. A 3dB-roll-off-frequency of some 1.3 GHz was obtained.
Lattice-cooled superconducting hot-electron bolometric mixers are used in a submillimeter-wave waveguide heterodyne receiver. The mixer elements are niobium nitride film with 3.5 nm thickness and ∼10 μm2 area. The local oscillator power for optimal performance is estimated to be 0.5 μW, and the instantaneous bandwidth is 2.2 GHz. At an intermediate frequency centered at 1.4 GHz with 200 MHz bandwidth, the double sideband receiver noise temperature is 410 K at 430 GHz. The receiver has been used to detect molecular line emission in a laboratory gas cell.
We present the results of our studies of NbN phonon-cooled HEB mixers at terahertz frequencies. The mixers were fabricated from NbN film deposited on a high-resistivity Si substrate with an MgO buffer layer. The mixer element was integrated with a log-periodic spiral antenna. The noise temperature measurements were performed at 2.5 THz and at 3.8 THz local oscillator frequencies for the 3 x 0.2 μm2 active area devices. The best uncorrected receiver noise temperatures found for these frequencies are 1300 K and 3100 K, respectively. A water vapour discharge laser was used as the LO source. The largest gain bandwidth of 5.2 GHz was achieved for a mixer based on 2 nm thick NbN film deposited on MgO layer over Si substrate. The gain bandwidth of the mixer based on 3.5 nm NbN film deposited on Si with MgO is 4.2 GHz and the noise bandwidth for the same device amounts to 5 GHz. We also present the results of our research into decrease of the direct detection contribution to the measured Y-factor and a possible error of noise temperature calculation. The use of a square nickel cell mesh as an IR-filter enabled us to avoid the effect of direct detection and measure apparent value of the noise temperature which was 16% less than that obtained using conventional black polyethylene IR-filter.
In this letter, the noise performance of NbN-based phonon-cooled hot electron bolometric quasioptical mixers is investigated in the 0.55–1.1 THz frequency range. The best results of the double-sideband (DSB) noise temperature are: 500 K at 640 GHz, 600 K at 750 GHz, 850 K at 910 GHz, and 1250 K at 1.1 THz. The water vapor in the signal path causes significant contribution to the measured receiver noise temperature around 1.1 THz. The devices are made from 3-nm-thick NbN film on high-resistivity Si and integrated with a planar spiral antenna on the same substrate. The in-plane dimensions of the bolometer strip are typically 0.2×2 μm. The amount of local oscillator power absorbed in the bolometer is less than 100 nW.
We have investigated a phonon-cooled NbN hot electron bolometric (HEB) mixer in the frequency range from 0.7 THz to 5.2 THz. The device was a 3.5 nm thin film with an in- plane dimension of 1.7 X 0.2 micrometers 2 integrated in a complementary logarithmic spiral antenna. The measured DSB receiver noise temperatures are 1500 K, 2200 K, 2600 K, 2900 K, 4000 K, 5600 K and 8800 K. The sensitivity fluctuation, the long term stability, and the antenna pattern were measured and the suitability of the mixer for a practical heterodyne receiver is discussed.