Low noise NbN lattice-cooled superconducting hot-electron bolometric mixers at submillimeter wavelengths
Journal article, 1997

Lattice-cooled superconducting hot-electron bolometric mixers are used in a submillimeter-wave waveguide heterodyne receiver. The mixer elements are niobium nitride film with 3.5 nm thickness and ∼ 10 μm2 area. The local oscillator power for optimal performance is estimated to be 0.5 μW, and the instantaneous bandwidth is 2.2 GHz. At an intermediate frequency centered at 1.4 GHz with 200 MHz bandwidth, the double sideband receiver noise temperature is 410 K at 430 GHz. The receiver has been used to detect molecular line emission in a laboratory gas cell.

superconductivity

noise propagation

heterodyne receivers

niobium

oscillators

Author

J. Kawamura

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

R. Blundell

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

C.-Y.E. Tong

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

G.N. Gol'tsman

Moscow State Pedagogical University

E.M. Gershenzon

Moscow State Pedagogical University

Boris Voronov

Moscow State Pedagogical University

Serguei Cherednichenko

Moscow State Pedagogical University

Applied Physics Letters

0003-6951 (ISSN) 1077-3118 (eISSN)

Vol. 70 12 1619-1621

Subject Categories

Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Other Physics Topics

Condensed Matter Physics

DOI

10.1063/1.118634

More information

Latest update

3/15/2022