1. Electromagnetic performance comparisons of 0.85 THz integrated bias-tee SIS mixers with twin-junction and end-loaded tuning schemes
- Author
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Tan, Boon Kok, Rudakov, Kirill, Koshelets, Valery P., Khudchenko, Andrey, Baryshev, Andrey M., Yassin, Ghassan, Zmuidzinas, Jonas, Gao, Jian-Rong, and Astronomy
- Subjects
Electromagnetism ,Millimetre/Sub-Millimetre Astronomy ,Heterodyne Technique ,Terahertz Technology ,Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) mixer - Abstract
We compare the design of two 0.85 THz SIS mixers fed with a radial probe antenna aligned to the E-Plane of the input full-height rectangular waveguide connected to a drilled smooth-walled horn. Both designs employ the same 0.5 μm2hybrid Nb/AlN/NbN tunnel junction technology, sandwiched between a NbTiN ground and aluminium wiring layer fabricated on top of a 40 μm quartz substrate. The two designs is differed by how we tune out the unwanted junction capacitance for broadband performance. The first design uses the commonly-used twin-junction tuning scheme; whilst the second design utilises an end-loaded scheme. We successfully achieve close to 2× the double sideband quantum noise performance for both schemes, but the twin-junction design is less sensitive to fabrication accuracy of planar circuit components utilised. However, the end-loaded design offers a much better IF bandwidth performance, almost twice wider than the twin-junction design. The need for an ultra-wide IF bandwidth mixer is becoming more pressing and important for the future and up-coming upgrades of various millimetre (mm) and sub-mm astronomical instruments, hence we conclude that the end-loaded design is a better solution for the THz heterodyne mixing applications.
- Published
- 2022
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