Upgrade of EMIR's Band 3 and Band 4 Mixers for the IRAM 30 m Telescope

Maier, D.; Reverdy, J.; Billon-Pierron, D.; Barbier, A.

doi:10.1109/tthz.2011.2180609

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Band 1 is equipped with the most recent development amongst the EMIR mixers: a sideband-separating mixer with very large IF band developed within the European project AMSTAR (Maier et al 2007(Maier et al , 2008. A schematic view of a sidebandseparating mixer is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Bandmentioning

confidence: 99%

The EMIR multi-band mm-wave receiver for the IRAM 30-m telescope

Carter

Lazareff

Maier

et al. 2012

A&A

192

160

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Aims. The prime motivation of this project was to design and build a state-of-art mm-wave heterodyne receiver system to enhance the observing throughput of the IRAM 30-m radiotelescope. More specifically, the requirements were i) state-of-art noise performance for spectroscopic observations; ii) simultaneous dual polarization and dual-frequency observing; iii) coverage of the atmospheric transmission windows from 83 to 360 GHz; iv) compact footprint and minimal maintenance. Methods. Key elements for low noise performance of heterodyne mixers are the superconducting Niobium junctions, operating at 4 K. These junctions are embedded in carefully designed coupling structures; furthermore, since atmospheric radiation is a significant contributor to the system noise budget, all mixers are either sideband separating or sideband rejecting. To achieve low noise, it is also essential to maximize the coupling of the receiver to the astronomical source, and to minimize the coupling to thermal radiation from the ground-based environment; this is achieved through mirror optics that realize a wavelength-independent coupling to the telescope. A flexible configuration of mirrors and frequency selective surfaces permits various combinations of frequency bands, as well as dual-load radiometric calibration. Low noise intermediate frequency amplifiers and bias electronics also play an important role in the system performance. Results. The EMIR receiver in operation at the 30 m telescope offers four frequency bands: B1: 83−117 GHz, B2: 129−174 GHz, B3: 200−267 GHz, and B4: 260−360 GHz. In each band, the two orthogonal polarizations are observed simultaneously. Dual-band combinations B1/2 B1/3, and B2/4 are available. Bands 1 and 4 (also 3 as of Nov.-2011) feature sideband separation. In dual-band configuration, including sideband separation and polarization diplexing, up to eight IF channels are delivered to the spectrometers, totaling up to 64 GHz of signal bandwidth (of which 32 GHz can be transported and processed by spectrometers, status Nov.-2011). The EMIR receiver has been in continuous operation for more than two years and has allowed, through a qualitative jump in performance, observations not possible before, as shown by a few selected examples of astronomical results.

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Section: Bandmentioning

confidence: 99%

The EMIR multi-band mm-wave receiver for the IRAM 30-m telescope

Carter

Lazareff

Maier

et al. 2012

A&A

192

160

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“…The IF impedance of the SIS mixer, when and are connected, respectively, to port (LSB) and 1 (USB), is given below (5) where We derived the RF impedance terminations ( and ) through electromagnetic simulation of the mixer structure and used an analytic fit to a real IV characteristic of a SIS junction at 4.2 K to calculate the impedance using (5). Simulated results are presented and compared to measurement data in Section IV.…”

Section: A Three-frequency Approximationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…8 a strong interest to increase the IF bandwidth of SIS receivers in order to improve the continuum sensitivity and expand the number of radio astronomy lines detectable in a single observing run. Thus, the PdBI dual-polarization receivers are being upgraded for the NOEMA (Northern Extended Millimeter Array) project, 1 [1] from backshort-tuned single side band (SSB) mixers [2], [3] to sideband separating (2SB) mixers providing two 8 GHz wide IF bands (across 4-12 GHz) [4], [5] per polarization channel, thereby allowing to gain a factor of 4 in terms of available IF band. The technology used for the NOEMA receiver is similar to that developed for the EMIR receiver [6] installed on the IRAM 30 m telescope at Pico Veleta, Spain.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The IF Output Impedance of SIS Mixers

Serres

Navarrini

Bortolotti

et al. 2014

IEEE Trans. THz Sci. Technol.

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In this paper, we describe a measurement setup to characterize the intermediate frequency (IF) impedance of cryogenically cooled superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixers. A setup based on a commercial vector network analyzer (VNA), a circulator and a low noise amplifier (LNA) has allowed to increase the dynamic of the VNA and to perform accurate one-port measurements across a high dynamic range of the SIS mixers IF band. The mixers were biased in three different regions of their unpumped IV curve to obtain three known impedances which are close to the classical calibration SOLT standards (Short, Open, Load, Thru): the reference plane was located at the SIS junction itself and the calibration procedure allowed to calibrate out all IF circuitry of the measurement setup, including the on-chip SIS mixer intrinsic capacitance and inductance without requiring to thermally cycle and open the cryostat to locate and measure the different calibration standards. Thus, the devised method provides a simple and direct measurement of the SIS mixers IF impedance which can be used for quick, accurate and highly repeatable IF characterization of any type of millimeter and sub-millimeter wave SIS mixers. The measurement method is described and the experimental results of the IF output impedances of 3 mm band DSB and SSB mixers with 4 GHz wide IFs (across 4-8 GHz) are presented and compared with simulated predictions obtained from combining Tucker's SIS mixer theory and accurate electromagnetic modeling of the mixer structure. Index Terms-Double side band (DSB) and single side band (SSB) tuning, intermediate frequency (IF) impedance, superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer, vector network analyzer (VNA) measurements.

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“…The main observing goal of the 4 mm channel is to study deuterated molecules in the interstellar medium, many of which have never been surveyed extensively by any telescope before. To speed implementation at 3 mm it was decided to incorporate existing 2SB SIS mixers (Maier et al 2007) while at 4 mm existing high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) amplifiers (Bryerton et al 2013) were used. Both receiver channels are designed to be dual polarization with OMTs and all-cold optics at 4 K physical temperature giving receiver temperatures of approximately 50K.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new 3 mm band receiver for the Onsala 20 m antenna

Belitsky

Lapkin

Fredrixon

et al. 2015

A&A

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A new receiver for the Onsala 20 m antenna with the possibility of being equipped with 3 mm and 4 mm bands has been built and the 3 mm channel has been commissioned during the Spring 2014. For single-dish operation, the receiver uses an innovative onsource/off-source optical switch. In combination with additional optical components and within the same optical layout, the switch provides two calibration loads (for the 3 mm and 4 mm channels), sideband rejection measurement, and tuning possibilities. The optical layout of the receiver employs all cold (4 K) offset elliptical mirrors for both channels, whereas the on-off switch employs flat mirrors only. The 3 mm channel employs a sideband separation (2SB) dual polarization receiver with orthomode transducer (OMT), 4-8 GHz intermediate frequency (IF), x 2pol x upper and lower sidebands (USB + LSB). The cryostat has four optical windows made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) with anti-reflection corrugations, two for the signal and two for each frequency band cold load. The cryostat uses a two-stage cryocooler produced by Sumitomo HI RDK 408D2 with anti-vibration suspension of the cold-head to minimize impact of the vibrations on the receiver stability. The local oscillator (LO) system is based on a Gunn oscillator with a phase lock loop (PLL) and four mechanical tuners for broadband operation, providing independently tunable LO power for each polarization. This paper provides a technical description of the receiver and its technology and could be useful for instrumentation engineers and observers using the Onsala 20 m telescope.

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Upgrade of EMIR's Band 3 and Band 4 Mixers for the IRAM 30 m Telescope

Cited by 12 publications

References 4 publications

The EMIR multi-band mm-wave receiver for the IRAM 30-m telescope

The EMIR multi-band mm-wave receiver for the IRAM 30-m telescope

The IF Output Impedance of SIS Mixers

A new 3 mm band receiver for the Onsala 20 m antenna

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