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Ryabchun S, Tong C-YE, Blundell R, Gol'tsman G. Stabilization scheme for hot-electron bolometer receivers using microwave radiation. IEEE Trans Appl Supercond. 2009;19(1):14–9.
Abstract: We present the results of a stabilization scheme for terahertz receivers based on NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers that uses microwave radiation with a frequency much lower than the gap frequency of NbN to compensate for mixer current fluctuations. A feedback control loop, which actively controls the power level of the injected microwave radiation, has successfully been implemented to stabilize the operating point of the HEB mixer. This allows us to increase the receiver Allan time to 10 s and also improve the temperature resolution of the receiver by about 30% in the total power mode of operation.
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Ryabchun SA, Tretyakov IV, Finkel MI, Maslennikov SN, Kaurova NS, Seleznev VA, et al. Fabrication and characterisation of NbN HEB mixers with in situ gold contacts. In: Proc. 19th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. Groningen, Netherlands; 2008. p. 62–7.
Abstract: We present our recent results of the fabrication and testing of NbN hot-electron bolometer mixers with in situ gold contacts. An intermediate frequency bandwidth of about 6 GHz has been measured for the mixers made of a 3.5-nm NbN film on a plane Si substrate with in situ gold contacts, compared to 3.5 GHz for devices made of the same film with ex situ gold contacts. The increase in the intermediate frequency bandwidth is attributed to additional diffusion cooling through the improved contacts, which is further supported by the its dependence on the bridge length: intermediate frequency bandwidths of 3.5 GHz and 6 GHz have been measured for devices with lengths of 0.35 μm and 0.16 μm respectively at a local oscillator frequency of 300 GHz near the superconducting transition. At a local oscillator frequency of 2.5 THz the receiver has offered a DSB noise temperature of 950 K. When compared to the previous result of 1300 K obtained at the same local oscillator frequency for devices fabricated with an ex situ route, such a low value of the noise temperature may also be attributed to the improved gold contacts.
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Baselmans JJA, Baryshev A, Reker SF, Hajenius M, Gao JR, Klapwijk TM, et al. Direct detection effect in small volume hot electron bolometer mixers. Appl Phys Lett. 2005;86(16):163503 (1 to 3).
Abstract: We measure the direct detection effect in a small volume (0.15μm×1μm×3.5nm)(0.15μm×1μm×3.5nm) quasioptical NbN phonon cooled hot electronbolometermixer at 1.6THz1.6THz. We find that the small signal sensitivity of the receiver is underestimated by 35% due to the direct detection effect and that the optimal operating point is shifted to higher bias voltages when using calibration loads of 300K300K and 77K77K. Using a 200GHz200GHzbandpass filter at 4.2K4.2K the direct detection effect virtually disappears. This has important implications for the calibration procedure of these receivers in real telescope systems.
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Gao JR, Hajenius M, Yang ZQ, Baselmans JJA, Khosropanah P, Barends R, et al. Terahertz superconducting hot electron bolometer heterodyne receivers. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.. 2007;17(2):252–8.
Abstract: We highlight the progress on NbN hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixers achieved through fruitful collaboration between SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. This includes the best receiver noise temperatures of 700 K at 1.63 THz using a twin-slot antenna mixer and 1050 K at 2.84 THz using a spiral antenna coupled HEB mixer. The mixers are based on thin NbN films on Si and fabricated with a new contact-process and-structure. By reducing their areas HEB mixers have shown an LO power requirement as low as 30 nW. Those small HEB mixers have demonstrated equivalent sensitivity as those with large areas provided the direct detection effect due to broadband radiation is removed. To manifest that a HEB based heterodyne receiver can in practice be used at arbitrary frequencies above 2 THz, we demonstrate a 2.8 THz receiver using a THz quantum cascade laser (QCL) as local oscillator.
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Tong C-YE, Meledin DV, Marrone DP, Paine SN, Gibson H, Blundell R. Near field vector beam measurements at 1 THz. IEEE Microw. Compon. Lett.. 2003;13(6):235–7.
Abstract: We have performed near-field vector beam measurements at 1.03 THz to characterize and align the receiver optics of a superconducting receiver. The signal source is a harmonic generator mounted on an X-Y translation stage. We model the measured two-dimensional complex beam pattern by a fundamental Gaussian mode, from which we derive the position of the beam center, the beam radius and the direction of propagation. By performing scans in the planes separated by 400 mm, we have confirmed that our beam pattern measurements are highly reliable.
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