Records |
Author |
Miao, W.; Zhang, W.; Zhong, J. Q.; Shi, S. C.; Delorme, Y.; Lefevre, R.; Feret, A; Vacelet, T |
Title |
Non-uniform absorption of terahertz radiation on superconducting hot electron bolometer microbridges |
Type |
Journal Article |
Year |
2014 |
Publication |
Appl. Phys. Lett. |
Abbreviated Journal |
<ef><bf><bc>Appl. Phys. Lett. |
Volume |
104 |
Issue |
|
Pages |
052605(1-4) |
Keywords |
NbN HEB mixers, local oscillator power, RF nonuniform absorption |
Abstract |
We interpret the experimental observation of a frequency-dependence of superconducting hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixers by taking into account the non-uniform absorption of the terahertz radiation on the superconducting HEB microbridge. The radiation absorption is assumed to be proportional to the local surface resistance of the HEB microbridge, which is computed using the Mattis-Bardeen theory. With this assumption the dc and mixing characteristics of a superconducting niobium-nitride (NbN) HEB device have been modeled at frequencies below and above the equilibrium gap frequency of the NbN film. |
Address |
|
Corporate Author |
|
Thesis |
|
Publisher |
|
Place of Publication |
|
Editor |
|
Language |
|
Summary Language |
|
Original Title |
|
Series Editor |
|
Series Title |
|
Abbreviated Series Title |
|
Series Volume |
|
Series Issue |
|
Edition |
|
ISSN |
|
ISBN |
|
Medium |
|
Area |
|
Expedition |
|
Conference |
|
Notes |
|
Approved |
no |
Call Number |
|
Serial |
935 |
Permanent link to this record |
|
|
|
Author |
Kawamura, J.; Blundell, R.; Tong, C.-Y. E.; Golts'man, G.; Gershenzon, E.; Voronov B. |
Title |
Superconductive NbN hot-electron bolometric mixer performance at 250 GHz |
Type |
Conference Article |
Year |
1996 |
Publication |
Proc. 7th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Proc. 7th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. |
Volume |
|
Issue |
|
Pages |
331-336 |
Keywords |
NbN HEB mixers |
Abstract |
Thin film NbN (<40 A) strips are used as waveguide mixer elements. The electron cooling mechanism for the geometry is the electron-phonon interaction. We report a receiver noise temperature of 750 K at 244 GHz, with / IF = 1.5 GHz, Af= 500 MHz, and Tphysical = 4 K. The instantaneous bandwidth for this mixer is 1.6 GHz. The local oscillator (LO) power is 0.5 1.tW with 3 dB-uncertainty. The mixer is linear to 1 dB up to an input power level 6 dB below the LO power. We report the first detection of a molecular line emission using this class of mixer, and that the receiver noise temperature determined from Y-factor measurements reflects the true heterodyne sensitivity. |
Address |
|
Corporate Author |
|
Thesis |
|
Publisher |
|
Place of Publication |
|
Editor |
|
Language |
|
Summary Language |
|
Original Title |
|
Series Editor |
|
Series Title |
|
Abbreviated Series Title |
|
Series Volume |
|
Series Issue |
|
Edition |
|
ISSN |
|
ISBN |
|
Medium |
|
Area |
|
Expedition |
|
Conference |
|
Notes |
|
Approved |
no |
Call Number |
|
Serial |
945 |
Permanent link to this record |
|
|
|
Author |
Tretyakov, I.; Maslennikov, S.; Semenov, A.; Safir, O.; Finkel, M.; Ryabchun, S.; Kaurova, N.; Voronov, B.; Goltsman, G.; Klapwijk, T. M. |
Title |
Impact of operating conditions on noise and gain bandwidth of NbN HEB mixers |
Type |
Conference Article |
Year |
2015 |
Publication |
Proc. 26th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Proc. 26th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. |
Volume |
|
Issue |
|
Pages |
39 |
Keywords |
NbN HEB mixers |
Abstract |
Hot-electron bolometer mixers (HEB’s) are the most promising devices as mixing element for terahertz spectroscopy and astronomy at frequencies beyond 1.4 THz. They have a low noise temperature and low demands on local oscillator (LO) power. 1,2 An important limitation is the IF bandwidth, of the order of a few GHz, and which in principle depends on energy relaxation due to electron- phonon processes and on diffusion-cooling. It has been proposed by Prober that a reduction in length of the HEB would lead to an increased bandwidth. 3 This appeared to be achieved by Tretyakov et al by measuring the gain bandwidth close to the critical temperature of the NbN. 2 Unfortunately, the noise bandwidth of similar devices operated at temperatures around 4.2 K appear not depend on the length. The fundamental problem to be addressed is the position-dependent superconducting state of the HEB- devices under operating conditions, which determines the conditions for the cooling of the hot quasiparticles. Some progress has been made by Barends et al in a semi-empirical model to describe the I,V curves under operating conditions at a bath temperature around 4.2 K. 4 In more recent work Vercruyssen et al have analyzed the I,V curve, without any LO-equivalent bias, of a model NSN system. 5 This work suggests that the most appropriate model for an HEB under operating conditions is that of a potential-well in the superconducting gap in the center of the NbN, analogous the bimodal superconducting state described by Vercruyssen et al. Hot quasiparticles in the well can not diffuse out and can only cool by electron-phonon processes, those with higher energies than the heights of the walls of the well can diffuse out. Using this working hypothesis we have carried out experiments on a sub-micrometer NbN bridge connected to a gold (Au) planar spiral antenna. An in situ process is used to deposit Au on NbN. The Au is removed in the center to define the uncovered NbN, which will act as the superconducting mixer itself. The antenna is deposited on the remaining Au layer on the NbN. The Au contacts suppress the energy gap of the NbN film located underneath the gold layer 7,8 . The measured resistive transition is shown in Fig.1. It clearly shows a T c of the bilayer at 6.2 K and the resistive transition of the NbN itself around 9 K. In addition we show the measured noise bandwidth (red squares) for different bath temperatures. Clearly the noise bandwidth increases strongly by increasing the bath temperature from 5 K to 8 K, up to 13 GHz. We interpret this pattern as evidence for improved out-diffusion of hot electrons due to normal banks and a shallow superconducting potential well compared to k B T. As expected the noise temperature in this regime is much bigger than when biased at 4.2 K. R EFERENCES 1 W. Zhang, P. Khosropanah, J. R. Gao, E. L. Kollberg, K. S. Yngvesson, T. Bansal, R. Barends, and T. M. Klapwijk Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 111113, (2010). 2 Ivan Tretyakov, Sergey Ryabchun, Matvey Finkel, Anna Maslennikova, Natalia Kaurova, Anastasia Lobastova, Boris Voronov, and Gregory Gol’tsman Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 033507 (2011). 3 D. E. Prober, Appl. Phys. Lett. 62, 2119 (1992). 4 R. Barends, M. Hajenius, J. R. Gao, and T. M. Klapwijk, Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 263506 (2005). 5 N. Vercruyssen, T. G. A. Verhagen, M. G. Flokstra, J. P. Pekola, and T. M. Klapwijk Physical Review B 85, 224503 (2012). |
Address |
|
Corporate Author |
|
Thesis |
|
Publisher |
|
Place of Publication |
|
Editor |
|
Language |
|
Summary Language |
|
Original Title |
|
Series Editor |
|
Series Title |
|
Abbreviated Series Title |
|
Series Volume |
|
Series Issue |
|
Edition |
|
ISSN |
|
ISBN |
|
Medium |
|
Area |
|
Expedition |
|
Conference |
|
Notes |
|
Approved |
no |
Call Number |
|
Serial |
1159 |
Permanent link to this record |
|
|
|
Author |
Antipov, S.; Trifonov, A.; Krause, S.; Meledin, D.; Desmaris, V.; Belitsky, V.; Gol’tsman, G. |
Title |
Gain bandwidth of NbN HEB mixers on GaN buffer layer operating at 2 THz local oscillator frequency |
Type |
Conference Article |
Year |
2017 |
Publication |
Proc. 28th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Proc. 28th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. |
Volume |
|
Issue |
|
Pages |
147-148 |
Keywords |
NbN HEB mixers, GaN buffer-layer, IF bandwidth |
Abstract |
In this paper, we present IF bandwidth measurement results of NbN HEB mixers, which are employing NbN thin films grown on a GaN buffer-layer. The HEB mixers were operated in the heterodyne regime at a bath temperature of approximately 4.5 K and with a local oscillator operating at a frequency of 2 THz. A quantum cascade laser served as the local oscillator and a reference synthesizer based on a BWO generator (130-160 GHz) and a semiconductor superlattice (SSL) frequency multiplier was used as a signal source. By changing the LO frequency it was possible to record the IF response or gain bandwidth of the HEB with a spectrum analyzer at the operation point, which yielded lowest noise temperature. The gain bandwidth that was recorded in the heterodyne regime at 2 THz amounts to approximately 5 GHz and coincides well with a measurement that has been performed at elevated bath temperatures and lower LO frequency of 140 GHz. These findings strongly support that by using a GaN buffer-layer the phonon escape time of NbN HEBs can be significantly lower as compared to e.g. Si substrate, thus, providing higher gain bandwidth. |
Address |
|
Corporate Author |
|
Thesis |
|
Publisher |
|
Place of Publication |
|
Editor |
|
Language |
|
Summary Language |
|
Original Title |
|
Series Editor |
|
Series Title |
|
Abbreviated Series Title |
|
Series Volume |
|
Series Issue |
|
Edition |
|
ISSN |
|
ISBN |
|
Medium |
|
Area |
|
Expedition |
|
Conference |
|
Notes |
|
Approved |
no |
Call Number |
|
Serial |
1175 |
Permanent link to this record |
|
|
|
Author |
Huebers, H.-W.; Schubert, J.; Semenov, A.; Gol’tsman, G. N.; Voronov, B. M.; Gershenzon, E. M.; Schwaab, G. W. |
Title |
NbN phonon-cooled hot-electron bolometer as a mixer for THz heterodyne receivers |
Type |
Conference Article |
Year |
1999 |
Publication |
Proc. SPIE |
Abbreviated Journal |
Proc. SPIE |
Volume |
3828 |
Issue |
|
Pages |
410-416 |
Keywords |
NbN HEB mixers |
Abstract |
We have investigated a phonon-cooled NbN hot electron bolometric (HEB) mixer in the frequency range from 0.7 THz to 5.2 THz. The device was a 3.5 nm thin film with an in- plane dimension of 1.7 X 0.2 micrometers 2 integrated in a complementary logarithmic spiral antenna. The measured DSB receiver noise temperatures are 1500 K, 2200 K, 2600 K, 2900 K, 4000 K, 5600 K and 8800 K. The sensitivity fluctuation, the long term stability, and the antenna pattern were measured and the suitability of the mixer for a practical heterodyne receiver is discussed. |
Address |
|
Corporate Author |
|
Thesis |
|
Publisher |
Spie |
Place of Publication |
|
Editor |
Chamberlain, J.M. |
Language |
|
Summary Language |
|
Original Title |
|
Series Editor |
|
Series Title |
|
Abbreviated Series Title |
|
Series Volume |
|
Series Issue |
|
Edition |
|
ISSN |
|
ISBN |
|
Medium |
|
Area |
|
Expedition |
|
Conference |
Terahertz Spectroscopy and Applications II |
Notes |
|
Approved |
no |
Call Number |
|
Serial |
1477 |
Permanent link to this record |