STEAMR Receiver Chain

Paper in proceeding, 2009

We report on the development of the STEAMR radiometer system, including the front-end receivers, LO multipliers and the back-end spectrometer system. STEAMR constitutes the submillimeter wave limbsounder on board PREMIER, one of three ESA Earth Explorer Core missions that have entered a feasibility study phase. The STEAMR instrument is based on a linear array of 14 heterodyne receivers operating in the 320 GHz to 360 GHz band processing over 260 GHz of instantaneous IF bandwidth. Thereto, eight of the fourteen receivers are to be sideband separating (2SB) and a novel waveguide based topology with integrated LNA’s has been developed. An overview of the receiver system is presented together with a conceptual design optimized to meet the scientific goals of the instrument. Preliminary results on critical receiver components such as front-end mixers, LO chains and the back end spectrometer are presented and different alternatives for realization are discussed.