SUPERCONDUCTING HOT-ELECTRON-BOLOMETER MIXERS FOR THE MID-IR

 

Ivan Pentin ¹, Matvey Finkel ¹, Sergey Maslennikov ¹, Yuri Vakhtomin ¹, Konstantin Smirnov ^1,2, Nataliya Kaurova ¹, Gregory Goltsman ^1,2

 

¹ Physics Department, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Malaya Pirogovskaya st. 28, Moscow 119435, Russia

² Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics, Higher School of Economics, Moscow 109028, Russia

 

The paper is received on October 11, 2017, after correction - on October 27, 2017

 

Abstract. The work presents the result of development of the NbN superconducting hot-electron-bolometer (HEB) mixer. The sensitive element of the mixer is directly coupled to mid-IR radiation, and doesn’t have planar metallic antenna. Investigations of noise characteristics of NbN HEB mixer were performed at the frequency 28.4 THz (λ = 10.6 µm) by using gas-discharge CW CO₂-laser without consideration of optical and electrical losses in the heterodyne receiver. The noise temperature of NbN HEB mixer with the size of the sensitive element 10 µm × 10 µm was 2320 K (~ 1.5hν/k_B) at the heterodyne frequency of 28.4 THz. The noise temperature was determined by measuring the Y-factor taking into account the term which describes fluctuations of zero-point oscillations in accordance with the fluctuation-dissipation theorem of Calle-Welton. Isothermal method was used to estimate the absorbed heterodyne radiation power which was 9 µW at the optimal operating point for the minimum noise temperature of NbN HEB mixer.

Keywords: NbN film, hot-electron effect in superconducting, receivers of electromagnetic radiation.

References

1. Sonnabend G, Wirtz D, Schieder R., et al. Appl. Opt. 2002, Vol. 41, pp. 2978–2984.

2. ESA's Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). Electronic resource. Available at http://sci.esa.int/iso/

3. A. Betz, R. Boreiko, S. Sivananthhan, et al. Proc. 12^th international symposium on space terahertz technology. 2001.

4. M.Mumma, T.Kostiuk, S.Cohen, et al.  Space Science Reviews. 1975, Vol. 17, No. 5, 661-667.

5. Kostiuk T., Spears D.  International Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves. 1987, Vol. 8, No.10, 1269-1279.

6. I. Tretyakov, S. Ryabchun, M. Finkel, et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 2011, Vol. 98, p. 033507.

7 P. Khosropanah, J.R. Gao, W.M. Laauwen, et al.  Appl. Phys. Lett. 2007, Vol. 91, p. 221111.

8. W. Zhang, P. Khosropanah, J.R. Gao, et al.  Appl. Phys. Lett. 2010, Vol. 99, p. 111113.

9. Maslennikov S., Finkel M., Vachtomin Y., et al.  Proc. 16th international symposium on space terahertz technology. 2005.

10. J.J.A. Baselmans, J M. Hajenius, R. Gao, et al.  Appl. Phys. Lett. 2004, Vol. 84, p. 1958.

11. Michael Shcherbatenko, Yury Lobanov, Oleg Benderov, et al.  26 th International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology. 2015.

12. Gershenzon E., Gol’tsman G., Gogidze I., et al.  Sov. Superconductivity. 1990, Vol. 3, No.10, p. 2143.

13. Gershenzon E., Gol’tsman, Elantiev A., et al.  IEEE Trans Magn. 1991, Vol. 27, pp. 1317-1320.

14. Yu.Gousev, G.N.Gol`tsman, A.D.Semenov, et al.  Appl. Phys. Lett. 1994, Vol. 75, No. 7, pp. 3695-3697.

15. P. Putz, D. Btichel, K. Jacobs,  et al.  26 th International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology, Cambridge. 2015.

16. Alexander Shurakov, Sergey Seliverstov, Natalia Kaurova, et al.  IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology. 2012, Vol. 2, No. 4.

17. A. Kerr, M. Feldman, and S.-K. Pan.  Proceedings of the 8^th International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology. 1997.

18. J. Baselmans, A. Baryshev, S. Reker, et al.  Appl. Phys. Lett. 2005, Vol. 86, p. 163503.

19. H. Åkstrom, Å. Kollbeãg, P. Yagoubov, et al.  Apllied Physics Letters. 1997, Vol. 70, pp. 3296-3298.

20. S. A. Ryabchun, I. V. Tret'yakov, I. V. Pentin, et al.  Radiophysics and Quantum Electronics. 2009, Vol. 52, No. 8.

21. A. Wittmann, Y. Bonetti, M. Fischer, et al.  IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 2009, Vol. 21, No. 12, pp. 814–816. 

For citation:

Ivan Pentin, Matvey Finkel, Sergey Maslennikov, Yuri Vakhtomin, Konstantin Smirnov, Nataliya Kaurova, Gregory Goltsman. Superconducting hot-electron bolometer mixed for the mid-IR. Zhurnal Radioelektroniki - Journal of Radio Electronics, 2017, No. 10. Available at http://jre.cplire.ru/jre/oct17/9/text.pdf. (In Russian)