The effects of nonlinear thermal fluctuation and series junction array on high-T _c superconducting terahertz mixer performance

Abstract

Sensitive high-T c superconducting (HTS) heterodyne receivers are envisioned as promising technologies for terahertz (THz) communication and sensing applications due to the lack of power efficient sources in the band. HTS device properties, particularly the noise temperature, are dependent on complicated factors that include multiple noise sources as well as the interaction between Josephson junction and radio-frequency (RF) networks. We report investigations on the device properties of an HTS THz mixer in the presence of nonlinear thermal fluctuation and series junction array. By using the three-port analysis method, it is observed that the Planck and quantum noises representing nonlinear thermal fluctuation plays a significant role in the cases of smaller fluctuation parameters and higher signal frequencies. The influence of series junction array on mixer performance is also studied, which shows that there is an optimum junction number dependent on the normalized RF source impedance. The measured results of a broadband antenna-coupled HTS single-junction mixer agree well with that obtained by numerical simulation. The results predict that noise performance, conversion gain and operating bandwidth would be considerably improved if a series junction array with a suitable junction number is used for heterodyne mixing.