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Published March 18, 1996 | public
Journal Article Open

Low-noise 1 THz niobium superconducting tunnel junction mixer with a normal metal tuning circuit

Abstract

We describe a 1 THz quasioptical SIS mixer which uses a twin-slot antenna, an antireflection-coated silicon hyperhemispherical lens, Nb/Al-oxide/Nb tunnel junctions, and an aluminum normal-metal tuning circuit in a two-junction configuration. Since the mixer operates substantially above the gap frequency of niobium (nu >~ 2 Delta/h ~ 700 GHz), a normal metal is used in the tuning circuit in place of niobium to reduce the Ohmic loss. The frequency response of the device was measured using a Fourier transform spectrometer and agrees reasonably well with the theoretical prediction. At 1042 GHz, the uncorrected double-sideband receiver noise temperature is 840 K when the physical temperature of the mixer is 2.5 K. This is the first SIS mixer which outperforms GaAs Schottky diode mixers by a large margin at 1 THz.

Additional Information

Copyright © 2006 American Institute of Physics. Received 6 November 1995; accepted 11 January 1996. We thank Paul Stockman and Geoff Blake for their assistance with the far-IR laser measurements, and Jacob Kooi for help with the 800 GHz measurements. This work was supported by NASA Grants NAG2-744 and NAGW-107, the NASA/JPL Center for Space Microelectronics Technology,and a NSF Presidential Young Investigator grant to J.Zmuidzinas.

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