A 1.3-THz Balanced Waveguide HEB Mixer for the APEX Telescope

In this paper, we report about the development, fabrication, and characterization of a balanced waveguide hot electron bolometer (HEB) receiver for the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment telescope covering the frequency band of 1.25-1.39 THz. The receiver uses a quadrature balanced scheme and two HEB mix...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques 2009-01, Vol.57 (1), p.89-98
Main Authors: Meledin, D., Pavolotsky, A., Desmaris, V., Lapkin, I., Risacher, C., Perez, V., Henke, D., Nystrom, O., Sundin, E., Dochev, D., Pantaleev, M., Fredrixon, M., Strandberg, M., Voronov, B., Goltsman, G., Belitsky, V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Balanced waveguide mixer
Balancing
Bolometers
Buffer layers
Crystallization
Deposition
Electrons
Frequency
hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer
Mixers
Noise temperature
Optical device fabrication
radio astronomy instrumentation
Receivers
Stability
Substrates
Telescopes
terahertz waveguide
Waveguide components
Waveguides
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Summary:In this paper, we report about the development, fabrication, and characterization of a balanced waveguide hot electron bolometer (HEB) receiver for the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment telescope covering the frequency band of 1.25-1.39 THz. The receiver uses a quadrature balanced scheme and two HEB mixers, fabricated from 4- to 5-nm-thick NbN film deposited on crystalline quartz substrate with an MgO buffer layer in between. We employed a novel micromachining method to produce all-metal waveguide parts at submicrometer accuracy (the main-mode waveguide dimensions are 90 times 180 mum ). We present details on the mixer design and measurement results, including receiver noise performance, stability and ldquofirst-lightrdquo at the telescope site. The receiver yields a double-sideband noise temperature averaged over the RF band below 1200 K, and outstanding stability with a spectroscopic Allan time more than 200 s.
ISSN:0018-9480
1557-9670
1557-9670
DOI:10.1109/TMTT.2008.2008946