Broken-step Phenomenon in SIS Mixers
Paper in proceeding, 2016

In this paper, we discuss a “broken step” phenomenon in an SIS mixer. This phenomena was observed in the production version of the SIS mixers, designed for the 159-211 GHz RF band,being used for the construction of the ALMA Band 5 receiver The broken step typically appears at LO frequencies above 180 GHz and manifests itself as a sharp onset in the DC current at the middle of the quasiparticle step. Correspondingly, this affects the mixer IF response in a way that is similar to the Josephson step but is however of a different nature. Such behaviour affects the SIS mixer dynamic range and complicates the tuning of the 2SB mixer to optimize its performance, for both the receiver noise as well as the sideband rejection. In this paper, we describe results of a few experiments which were performed to understand this undesirable phenomenon.

Author

Andrey Ermakov

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Victor Belitsky

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Parisa Yadranjee Aghdam

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Vincent Desmaris

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Sven-Erik Ferm

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Mathias Fredrixon

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Sascha Krause

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Igor Lapkin

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Denis Meledin

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Alexey Pavolotskiy

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Hawal Marouf Rashid

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Sareh Shafiee

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Magnus Strandberg

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

Erik Sundin

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Advanced Receiver Development

kamaljeet saini

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

E bryerton

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

27th International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology, ISSTT 2016, Nanjing, China

Subject Categories

Materials Engineering

Other Physics Topics

Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

Nano Technology

Infrastructure

Onsala Space Observatory

Nanofabrication Laboratory

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Latest update

2/12/2021