Self-heating of cryogenic HEMT amplifiers and the limits of microwave noise performance
Abstract
The fundamental limits of the microwave noise performance of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) are of scientific and practical interest for applications in radio astronomy and quantum computing. Self-heating at cryogenic temperatures has been reported to be a limiting mechanism for the noise, but cryogenic cooling strategies to mitigate it, for instance using liquid cryogens, have not been evaluated. Here, we report microwave noise measurements of a packaged two-stage HEMT amplifier immersed in normal and superfluid ⁴He baths and in vacuum from 1.6 - 80 K. We find that these liquid cryogens are unable to mitigate the thermal noise associated with self-heating. Considering this finding, we examine the implications for the lower bounds of cryogenic noise performance in HEMTs. Our analysis supports the general design principle for cryogenic HEMTs of maximizing gain at the lowest possible power.
Additional Information
The authors thank Sander Weinreb, Pekka Kangaslahti, Junjie Li, and Jan Grahn for useful discussions. A.A, A.Y.C., B.G., K.C., A.C.R., and A.J.M. were supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1911220. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. J.K. was supported by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory PDRDF under Grant No. 107614-20AW0099. Experimental work was performed at the Cahill Radio Astronomy Laboratory (CRAL) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant No. 80NM0018D0004).Attached Files
Submitted - 2205.03975.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 115402
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20220707-204101966
- NSF
- AST-1911220
- JPL President and Director's Fund
- 107614-20AW0099
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- 80NM0018D0004
- Created
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2022-07-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2023-06-02Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Astronomy Department