The X-band high gain and radiation-hardness low-noise GaAs MMIC amplifier with cryogenic temperature for X-ray astronomy

A 8–12 GHz monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) low noise amplifier (LNA) was designed for X-ray astronomy with cryogenic temperature and under radiation. The LNA was fabricated using a 0.15µm gate length GaAs-based pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (pHEMT) process. At 10 GHz, the LNA module has a gain of 32.7 dB and a noise figure of 2.1 dB at 300 K. The module was cooled down to a cryogenic temperature of 77 K, where the LNA a achieved high gain of 33.8 dB. At 10GHz, the noise figure at 103 K was 0.86 dB. In additional, total ionizing dose (TID) test was performed for the LNA that are expected to be used in astronomy. The gain and the noise figure of this LNA module did not deteriorate before and after this TID test.