Low noise MgB2 terahertz hot-electron bolometer mixers

Journal article, 2012

We report on low noise terahertz bolometric mixers made of MgB2 superconducting thin films. For a 10-nm-thick MgB2 film, the lowest mixer noise temperature was 600 K at 600 GHz. For 30 to 10-nm-thick films, the mixer gain bandwidth is an inverse function of the film thickness, reaching 3.4 GHz for the 10-nm film. As the critical temperature of the film decreases, the gain bandwidth also decreases, indicating the importance of high quality thin films for large gain bandwidth mixers. The results indicate the prospect of achieving a mixer gain bandwidth as large as 10-8 GHz for 3 to 5-nm-thick MgB2 films.