Records |
Author |
Baselmans, J. J. A.; Hajenius, M.; Gao, J. R.; Klapwijk, T. M.; de Korte, P. A. J.; Voronov, B.; Gol'tsman, G. |
Title |
Noise performance of NbN hot electron bolometer mixers at 2.5 THz and its dependence on the contact resistance |
Type |
Conference Article |
Year |
2003 |
Publication |
Proc. 14th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Proc. 14th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. |
Volume |
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Issue |
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Pages |
11-19 |
Keywords |
NbN HEB mixers |
Abstract |
NbN hot electron bolometer mixers (HEBM) are at this moment the best heterodyne receivers for frequencies above 1 Thz. However, the fabrication procedure of these devices is such that the quality of the interface between the NbN superconducting film and the contact structure is not under good control. The result is a low transparency interface between the bolometer itself and the contact/antenna structure. In this paper we report a detailed experimental study on a novel idea to increase the transparency of this interface. This leads to a record sensitivity and more reproducible performance. We compare identical bolometers, coupled with a spiral antenna, with different NbN bolometer-contact pad interfaces. We find that cleaning the NbN interface alone results in an increase in the noise temperature. However, cleaning the NbN interface and adding a thin additional superconductor prior to the gold contact deposition improves the noise temperature of the HEBm with more than a factor of 2. A device with a contact pad on top of an in-situ cleaned NbN film consisting of 10 nm of NbTiN and 40 nm of gold has a DSB noise temperature of 1050 K at 2.5 THz. |
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1497 |
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Author |
Baselmans, J. J. A.; Hajenius, M.; Gao, J.; de Korte, P.; Klapwijk, T. M.; Voronov, B.; Gol’tsman, G. |
Title |
Doubling of sensitivity and bandwidth in phonon-cooled hot-electron bolometer mixers |
Type |
Conference Article |
Year |
2004 |
Publication |
Proc. SPIE |
Abbreviated Journal |
Proc. SPIE |
Volume |
5498 |
Issue |
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Pages |
168-176 |
Keywords |
Hot electron bolometers, bandwidth, noise temperature, experimental |
Abstract |
NbN hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixers are at this moment the best heterodyne detectors for frequencies above 1 THz. However, the fabrication procedure of these devices is such that the quality of the interface between the NbN superconducting film and the contact structure is not under good control. This results in a contact resistance between the NbN bolometer and the contact pad. We compare identical bolometers, with different NbN – contact pad interfaces, coupled with a spiral antenna. We find that cleaning the NbN interface and adding a thin additional superconductor prior to the gold contact deposition improves the noise temperature and the bandwidth of the HEB mixers with more than a factor of 2. We obtain a DSB noise temperature of 950 K at 2.5 THz and a Gain bandwidth of 5-6 GHz. For use in real receiver systems we design small volume (0.15x1 micron) HEB mixers with a twin slot antenna. We find that these mixers combine good sensitivity (900 K at 1.6 THz) with low LO power requirement, which is 160 – 240 nW at the Si lens of the mixer. This value is larger than expected from the isothermal technique and the known losses in the lens by a factor of 3-3.5. |
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SPIE |
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Zmuidzinas, J.; Holland, W.S.; Withington, S. |
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Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors for Astronomy II |
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1744 |
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Baselmans, J. J. A.; Hajenius, M.; Gao, J. R.; Klapwijk, T. M.; de Korte, P. A. J.; Voronov, B.; Gol'tsman, G. |
Title |
Doubling of sensitivity and bandwidth in phonon cooled hot electron bolometer mixers |
Type |
Journal Article |
Year |
2004 |
Publication |
Appl. Phys. Lett. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Appl. Phys. Lett. |
Volume |
84 |
Issue |
11 |
Pages |
1958-1960 |
Keywords |
NbN HEB mixers |
Abstract |
We demonstrate that the performance of NbN lattice cooled hot electron bolometer mixers depends strongly on the interface quality between the bolometer and the contact structure. We show experimentally that both the receiver noise temperature and the gain bandwidth can be improved by more than a factor of 2 by cleaning the interface and adding an additional superconducting interlayer to the contact pad. Using this we obtain a double sideband receiver noise temperature TN,DSB=950 K
at 2.5 THz and 4.3 K, uncorrected for losses in the optics. At the same bias point, we obtain an IF gain bandwidth of 6 GHz. |
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352 |
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Baselmans, J. J. A.; Baryshev, A.; Reker, S. F.; Hajenius, M.; Gao, J. R.; Klapwijk, T. M.; Vahtomin, Yu.; Maslennikov, S.; Antipov, S.; Voronov, B.; Gol'tsman, G. |
Title |
Direct detection effect in small volume hot electron bolometer mixers |
Type |
Journal Article |
Year |
2005 |
Publication |
Appl. Phys. Lett. |
Abbreviated Journal |
Appl. Phys. Lett. |
Volume |
86 |
Issue |
16 |
Pages |
163503 (1 to 3) |
Keywords |
HEB, mixer, direct detection effect |
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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377 |
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Baselmans, J. J. A.; Hajenius, M.; Gao, J. R.; Baryshev, A.; Kooi, J.; Klapwijk, T. M.; Voronov, B.; de Korte, P.; Gol'tsman, G. |
Title |
NbN hot electron bolometer mixers: sensitivity, LO power, direct detection and stability |
Type |
Journal Article |
Year |
2005 |
Publication |
IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. |
Abbreviated Journal |
IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. |
Volume |
15 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
484-489 |
Keywords |
HEB mixers, direct detection effect, stability, Allan variance |
Abstract |
We demonstrate that the performance of NbN lattice cooled hot electron bolometer mixers depends strongly on the interface quality between the bolometer and the contact structure. Both the receiver noise temperature and the gain bandwidth can be improved by a factor of 2 by cleaning the interface and adding an additional superconducting interlayer to the contact pad. Using this we obtain a double sideband receiver noise temperature of 950 K at 2.5 THz and 4.3 K, using a 0.4/spl times/4 /spl mu/m HEB mixer with a spiral antenna. At the same bias point, we obtain an IF gain bandwidth of 6 GHz. To comply with current demands on THz mixers for use in space based receivers we reduce the device size to 0.15/spl times/1 /spl mu/m and use a twin slot antenna. We report measurements of the noise temperature, LO power requirement, stability and the direct detection effect, using a mixer with a 1.6 THz twin slot antenna and a 1.462 THz solid state LO source with calibrated output power. |
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1051-8223 |
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546 |
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