Broadband MgB2 Hot-Electron Bolometer THz Mixers operating up to 20K

Journal article, 2017

We discuss performance of submicron size hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers made from thin MgB2 superconducting films. With a superconducting transition temperature of 30K, such THz mixers can operate with high sensitivity at temperatures up to 20K. Due to very small dimensions local oscillator (LO) power requirements are rather low. In the intermediate frequency (IF) band of 1-3GHz the double sideband receiver noise temperature is 1600K at 10K operation temperature, 2000K at 15K, 2500-3000K at 20K. The gain bandwidth of such devices is 6GHz and the noise bandwidth is estimated to be 6-8GHz