Superconducting NbN hot electron bolometer mixer at terahertz

Author

Jin, B.B. ; Chen, J. ; Liang, M. ; Kang, L. ; Xu, W.W. ; Wu, P.H.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Sci.&Eng., Nanjing Univ., Nanjing, China

fYear

2009

fDate

21-25 Sept. 2009

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

3

Abstract

Superconducting niobium nitride (NbN) hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixers at terahertz (THz) have been designed, fabricated and measured for applications in astronomy and cosmology. The NbN HEB mixer consists of a planar antenna and an NbN bridge connecting across the antenna´s inner terminals on high-resistivity Si substrates. Double sideband (DSB) receiver noise temperatures of 698 K at 0.65 THz, 904 K at 1.6 THz, 1026 K at 2.5 THz and 1386 K at 3.1 THz have been obtained at 4.2 K without corrections and using changeable input local oscillation (LO) power to eliminate the affects of direct detection and instability of the LO power. The excess quantum noise factor beta of about 4 has been estimated using a quantum noise model.

Keywords

bolometers; hot carriers; microwave mixers; niobium compounds; planar antennas; quantum noise; superconducting mixers; LO power; NbN; Si; astronomy; changeable input local oscillation power; cosmology; double sideband receiver noise temperature; frequency 0.65 THz; frequency 1.6 THz; frequency 2.5 THz; frequency 3.1 THz; high-resistivity silicon substrates; hot electron bolometer; planar antenna inner terminals; quantum noise factor; quantum noise model; quasioptical superconducting HEB mixers; superconducting niobium nitride; temperature 1026 K; temperature 1386 K; temperature 4.2 K; temperature 698 K; temperature 904 K; Antenna measurements; Astronomy; Bolometers; Bridges; Electrons; Extraterrestrial measurements; Niobium compounds; Planar arrays; Submillimeter wave measurements; Superconducting device noise;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves, 2009. IRMMW-THz 2009. 34th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Busan

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5416-7

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-5417-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICIMW.2009.5325520

Filename

5325520