Application of Superconducting Hot-Electron Bolometer Mixers for Terahertz-Band Astronomy

Abstract

SUMMARY Recently, a next-generation heterodyne mixer detectora hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer employing a superconducting microbridge-has gradually opened up terahertz-band astronomy. The surrounding state-of-the-art technologies including fabrication processes, 4 K cryostats, cryogenic low-noise amplifiers, local oscillator sources, micromachining techniques, and spectrometers, as well as the HEB mixers, have played a valuable role in the development of super-low-noise heterodyne spectroscopy systems for the terahertz band. The current developmental status of terahertz-band HEB mixer receivers and their applications for spectroscopy and astronomy with ground-based, airborne, and satellite telescopes are presented.

Enhancement of terahertz photoconductive antenna operation by optical nanoantennas

“…As a result, THz waves have tremendous application capacity in areas ranging from the detection of dangerous and illicit substances [4,11,[20][21][22][23] to diagnosis and treatment of diseases in medicine [18,19,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Moreover, this frequency band is of a special importance for spectroscopy in astrophysics [31][32][33][34][35][36] for the reason that many astrophysical objects emit in the THz range of the spectrum. In addition, THz technology is promising for wireless communication systems as a replacement for transmitters and receivers operating in high-frequency and microwave ranges, because it can potentially increase the speed of data transfer by hundreds of times [37][38][39][40][41][42].…”

THz Mixing with High-TC Hot Electron Bolometers: A Performance Modeling Assessment for Y-Ba-Cu-O Devices

“…Unlike the formal procedure just described, Equation (5) indicates that I LO (and not P LO ) is the THz input, P LO being deduced at the end of the calculation. Therefore, it is not possible to perform a calculation that will accurately give a result ascribed to a given P LO value.…”

“…The concept then fruitfully evolved [2], rather in favor of low T C devices to start with, mainly Nb and NbN, exhibiting the diffusion cooled and phonon cooled processes, respectively [3]. In fact, the research on HEBs was mainly driven by immediate applications to THz radio astronomy as mixers for heterodyne reception [4,5]. Besides, YBCO was attractive in several respects, e.g., operating temperature with light cryogenics, or fast response, due to its very short electron-phonon relaxation time τ ep , in the ps range [6][7][8].…”

THz Range Low-Noise SIS Receivers for Space and Ground-Based Radio Astronomy

“…Currently, the most developed are two types of superconducting mixers: SIS mixers [1][2][3][4][5][6] for frequencies from 0.2 to 1.2 THz and hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers [7][8][9][10][11] for frequencies of 1-5 THz. Both types of mixers are mainly used in radio astronomy, where low receiver noise is a critical issue.…”