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Author Ryabchun, Sergey; Tong, Cheuk-Yu Edward; Paine, Scott; Lobanov, Yury; Blundell, Raymond; Goltsman, Gregory
Title Temperature resolution of an HEB receiver at 810 GHz Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. Abbreviated Journal (up) IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.
Volume 19 Issue 3 Pages 293-296
Keywords HEB mixer
Abstract We present the results of direct measurements of the temperature resolution of an HEB receiver operating at 810 GHz, in both continuum and spectroscopic modes. In the continuum mode, the input of the receiver was switched between black bodies with different physical temperatures. With a system noise temperature of around 1100 K, the receiver was able to resolve loads which differed in temperature by about 1 K over an integration time of 5 seconds. This resolution is significantly worse than the value of 0.07 K given by the radiometer equation. In the spectroscopic mode, a gas cell filled with carbonyl sulphide (OCS) gas was used and the emission line at 813.3537060 GHz was measured using the receiver in conjunction with a digital spectrometer. From the observed spectra, we determined that the measurement uncertainty of the equivalent emission temperature was 2.8 K for an integration time of 0.25 seconds and a spectral resolution of 12 MHz, compared to a 1.4 K temperature resolution given by the radiometer equation. This relative improvement is due to the fact that at short integration times the contribution from 1/f noise and drift are less dominant. In both modes, the temperature resolution was improved by about 40% with the use of a feedback loop which adjusted the level of an injected microwave radiation to maintain a constant operating current of the HEB mixer. This stabilization scheme has proved to be very effective to keep the temperature resolution of the HEB receiver to close to the theoretical value given by the radiometer equation.
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Call Number Serial 636
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Author Lobanov, Y.V.; Tong, C.-Y.E.; Hedden, A.S.; Blundell, R.; Voronov, B.M.; Gol'tsman, G.N.
Title Direct measurement of the gain and noise bandwidths of HEB mixers Type Journal Article
Year 2011 Publication IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. Abbreviated Journal (up) IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.
Volume 21 Issue 3 Pages 645-648
Keywords waveguide NbN HEB mixers
Abstract The intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth of a hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer is an important parameter of the mixer, in that it helps to determine its suitability for a given application. With the availability of wideband low noise amplifiers, it is simple to measure the performance of an HEB mixer over a wide range of IF at a fixed LO frequency using the standard Y-factor method. This in-situ method allows us to measure both the gain and noise bandwidths simultaneously. We have also measured mixer output impedance with a vector network analyser. Intrinsic time constant has been extracted from the impedance data and compared to the mixer's bandwidths determined from receiver Y-factor measurement.
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Call Number RPLAB @ gujma @ Serial 720
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Author Trifonov, A.; Tong, C.-Y. E.; Blundell, R.; Ryabchun, S.; Gol'tsman, G.
Title Probing the stability of HEB mixers with microwave injection Type Journal Article
Year 2015 Publication IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. Abbreviated Journal (up) IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.
Volume 25 Issue 3 Pages 2300404 (1 to 4)
Keywords NbN HEB mixer, stability, Allan-variance
Abstract Using a microwave probe as a tool, we have performed experiments aimed at understanding the origin of the output-power fluctuations in hot-electron-bolometer (HEB) mixers. We use a probe frequency of 1.5 GHz. The microwave probe picks up impedance changes of the HEB, which are examined upon demodulation of the reflected wave outside the cryostat. This study shows that the HEB mixer operates in two different regimes under a terahertz pump. At a low pumping level, strong pulse modulation is observed, as the device switches between the superconducting state and the normal state at a rate of a few megahertz. When pumped much harder, to approximate the low-noise mixer operating point, residual modulation can still be observed, showing that the HEB mixer is intrinsically unstable even in the resistive state. Based on these observations, we introduced a low-frequency termination to the HEB mixer. By terminating the device in a 50-Ω resistor in the megahertz frequency range, we have been able to improve the output-power Allan time of our HEB receiver by a factor of four to about 10 s for a detection bandwidth of 15 MHz, with a corresponding gain fluctuation of about 0.035%.
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ISSN 1051-8223 ISBN Medium
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Call Number Serial 1355
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Author Lobanov, Y.; Shcherbatenko, M.; Finkel, M.; Maslennikov, S.; Semenov, A.; Voronov, B. M.; Rodin, A. V.; Klapwijk, T. M.; Gol'tsman, G. N.
Title NbN hot-electron-bolometer mixer for operation in the near-IR frequency range Type Journal Article
Year 2015 Publication IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. Abbreviated Journal (up) IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.
Volume 25 Issue 3 Pages 2300704 (1 to 4)
Keywords HEB mixer, IR, optical antenna
Abstract Traditionally, hot-electron-bolometer (HEB) mixers are employed for THz and “super-THz” heterodyne detection. To explore the near-IR spectral range, we propose a fiber-coupled NbN film based HEB mixer. To enhance the incident-light absorption, a quasi-antenna consisting of a set of parallel stripes of gold is used. To study the antenna effect on the mixer performance, we have experimentally studied a set of devices with different size of the Au stripe and spacing between the neighboring stripes. With use of the well-known isotherm technique we have estimated the absorption efficiency of the mixer, and the maximum efficiency has been observed for devices with the smallest pitch of the alternating NbN and NbN-Au stripes. Also, a proper alignment of the incident Eâƒ<2014>-field with respect to the stripes allows us to improve the coupling further. Studying IV-characteristics of the mixer under differently-aligned Eâƒ<2014>-field of the incident radiation, we have noticed a difference in their shape. This observation suggests that a difference exists in the way the two waves with orthogonal polarizations parallel and perpendicular Eâƒ<2014>-field to the stripes heat the electrons in the HEB mixer. The latter results in a variation in the electron temperature distribution over the HEB device irradiated by the two waves.
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Call Number Serial 952
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Author Seliverstov, S.; Maslennikov, S.; Ryabchun, S.; Finkel, M.; Klapwijk, T. M.; Kaurova, N.; Vachtomin, Yu.; Smirnov, K.; Voronov, B.; Goltsman, G.
Title Fast and sensitive terahertz direct detector based on superconducting antenna-coupled hot electron bolometer Type Journal Article
Year 2015 Publication IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. Abbreviated Journal (up) IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.
Volume 25 Issue 3 Pages 2300304
Keywords HEB detector responsivity, HEB model, numerical calculations, numerical model
Abstract We characterize superconducting antenna-coupled hot-electron bolometers for direct detection of terahertz radiation operating at a temperature of 9.0 K. The estimated value of responsivity obtained from lumped-element theory is strongly different from the measured one. A numerical calculation of the detector responsivity is developed, using the Euler method, applied to the system of heat balance equations written in recurrent form. This distributed element model takes into account the effect of nonuniform heating of the detector along its length and provides results that are in better agreement with the experiment. At a signal frequency of 2.5 THz, the measured value of the optical detector noise equivalent power is 2.0 × 10-13 W · Hz-0.5. The value of the bolometer time constant is 35 ps. The corresponding energy resolution is about 3 aJ. This detector has a sensitivity similar to that of the state-of-the-art sub-millimeter detectors operating at accessible cryogenic temperatures, but with a response time several orders of magnitude shorter.
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Notes Approved no
Call Number Serial 953
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