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Semenov, A., Richter, H., Smirnov, A., Günther, B., Hübers, H. - W., Il’in, K., et al. (2007). Development of HEB mixers for GREAT and for security screening. In Proc. 18th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (184).
Abstract: We report the study on the quasioptical coupling efficiency and the gain bandwidth of NbN hot-electron bolometer mixers developed for the 4.7 THz channel of the German receiver for Astronomy at THz-frequencies (GREAT) and for security screening at subterahertz frequencies. Radiation coupling efficiency and directive properties of integrated lens antennas with log-spiral, log-periodic and double-slot planar feeds coupled to a hot-electron bolometer were experimentally studied at frequencies from 1 THz to 6 THz and compared with simulations based on the method of moments and the physical-optics ray tracing. For all studied antennas the modeled spectral dependence of the coupling efficiency fits to the experimental data obtained with both Fourier transform spectroscopy and noise temperature measurements only if the complex impedance of the bolometer is explicitly taken into account. Our experimental data did not indicate any noticeable contribution of the quantum noise to the system noise temperature. The experimentally observed deviation of the beam pattern from the model prediction increases with frequency and is most likely due to a non- ideality of the presently used lenses. Study of the intermediate frequency mixer gain at local oscillator (LO) frequencies between 2.5 THz and 0.3 THz showed an increase of the gain bandwidth at low LO frequencies that was understood as the contribution of the direct interaction of magnetic vortices with the radiation field. We have found that the non- homogeneous hot-spot model more adequately describes variation of the intermediate frequency bandwidth with the applied local oscillator power than any of uniform mixer models. The state-of-the-day performance of the GREAT 4.7-THz channel and the 0.8-THz security scanner will be presented.
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Hajenius, M., Yang, Z. Q., Gao, J. R., Baselmans, J. J. A., Klapwijk, T. M., Voronov, B., et al. (2007). Optimized sensitivity of NbN hot electron bolometer mixers by annealing. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., 17(2), 399–402.
Abstract: We report that the heterodyne sensitivity of superconducting hot-electron bolometers (HEBs) increases by 25-30% after annealing at 85degC in high vacuum. The devices studied are twin-slot antenna coupled mixers with a small area NbN bridge of 1 mum times 0.15 mum, above which there is a SiO 2 passivation layer. The mixer noise temperature, gain, and resistance versus temperature curve of a HEB before and after annealing are compared and analysed. We show that the annealing reduces the intrinsic noise of the mixer by 37% and makes the superconducting transition of the bridge and the contacts sharper. We argue that the reduction ofthe noise is mainly due to the improvement of the transparency of the contact/film interface. The lowest receiver noise temperature of 700 K is measured at a local oscillator frequency of 1.63 THz and at a bath temperature of 4.2 K.
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Smirnov, K., Korneev, A., Minaeva, O., Divochiy, A., Tarkhov, M., Ryabchun, S., et al. (2007). Ultrathin NbN film superconducting single-photon detector array. In J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. (Vol. 61, pp. 1081–1085).
Abstract: We report on the fabrication process of the 2 × 2 superconducting single-photon detector (SSPD) array. The SSPD array is made from ultrathin NbN film and is operated at liquid helium temperatures. Each detector is a nanowire-based structure patterned by electron beam lithography process. The advances in fabrication technology allowed us to produce highly uniform strips and preserve superconducting properties of the unpatterned film. SSPD exhibit up to 30% quantum efficiency in near infrared and up to 1% at 5-μm wavelength. Due to 120 MHz counting rate and 18 ps jitter, the time-domain multiplexing read-out is proposed for large scale SSPD arrays. Single-pixel SSPD has already found a practical application in non-invasive testing of semiconductor very-large scale integrated circuits. The SSPD significantly outperformed traditional single-photon counting avalanche diodes.
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Ryabchun, S., Tong, C. -yu E., Blundell, R., Kimberk, R., & Gol’tsman, G. (2007). Stabilisation of a terahertz hot-electron bolometer mixer with microwave feedback control. In Proc. 18th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (pp. 193–198).
Abstract: We report on implementation of microwave feedback control loop to stabilise the performance of an HEB mixer receiver. It is shown that the receiver sensitivity increases by a factor of 4 over a 16-minute scan, and the corresponding Allan time increases up to 10 seconds, as opposed to an open loop value of 1 second. Our experiments also demonstrate that the receiver sensitivity is limited by the intermediate frequency chain.
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Gol’tsman, G., Korneev, A., Tarkhov, M., Seleznev, V., Divochiy, A., Minaeva, O., et al. (2007). Middle-infrared ultrafast superconducting single photon detector. In 32nd IRMW / 15th ICTE (pp. 115–116).
Abstract: We present the results of the research on quantum efficiency of the ultrathin-film superconducting single-photon detectors (SSPD) in the wavelength rage from 1 mum to 5.7 mum. Reduction of operation temperature to 1.6 K allowed us to measure quantum efficiency of ~1 % at 5.7 mum wavelength with the SSPD made from 4-nm-thick NbN film. In a pursuit of further performance improvement we endeavored SSPD fabricating from 4-nm-thick MoRe film as an alternative material. The MoRe film exhibited transition temperature of 7.7K, critical current density at 4.2 K temperature was 1.1times10 6 A/cm 2 , and diffusivity 1.73 cmVs. The single-photon response was observed with MoRe SSPD at 1.3 mum wavelength with quantum efficiency estimated to be 0.04%.
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