Nanopatterning and Hot Spot Modeling of YBCO Ultrathin Film Constrictions for THz Mixers

High-T_C hot electron bolometers (HEB) are promising THz mixers due to their expected wide bandwidth, large mixing gain, and low intrinsic noise. To achieve this goal, 0.6-μm-size constrictions were patterned on YBaCuO-based, 10-40-nm-thick films grown on (100) MgO substrates, which as previously reported, exhibited good DC superconducting properties. In this paper, we have simulated the DC and mixer characteristics of YBaCuO HEBs with a hot spot model usually dedicated to low-T_C devices. For a 100 nm × 100 nm × 10 nm constriction, the expected double sideband noise temperature T_N is 2000 K for 5 μW local oscillator (LO) power (G = -13.5 dB conversion gain). For a larger (but more realistic according to YBaCuO aging effects) 600 nm × 1000 nm × 35 nm constriction, T_N = 1300 K at 200 μW LO power (G = -12 dB). This approach is expected to allow optimizing the operation of the HEB constriction coupled to a THz planar antenna.