A full-band waveguide SIS receiver with integrated tuning for 75-100 GHz

Conference · Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 1991 · IEEE Transactions on Magnetics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States)

OSTI ID:5922086

Winkler, D; Ugras, N G; Worsham, A H; Prober, D E ^[1]; Erickson, N R; Goldsmith, P F ^[2]

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1. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States). Dept. of Applied Physics
2. Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (US)

This paper reports on the performance of a broadband SIS receiver with no mechanical tuning elements was scale modelled and tested. The mixer mount had a broadband waveguide to microstripline transition consisting of a 4-step Chebychev single ridge transformer. The last step of the ridge connected the waveguide to a microstripline circuit. The on-chip circuit consisted of a microstripline, which transmitted the rf and the local oscillator signals to the SIS mixer. Some chips included a thin film strip inductor in parallel with the mixer. Both the SIS element and the inductor had rf grounds provided by 90{degrees} radial stubs. The inductor tuned out the junction capacitance to allow operation over the full frequency band. The SIS element can be a single junction or series array using Nb/AlO{sub x}/Nb trilayer tunnel junctions with areas as small as 0.5 {mu}m{sup 2} and V{sub m}(2mV) = 39 mV. Preliminary results indicated a DSB receiver noise temperature of 65-80 K across the band measured at 4.4 K with an internal cryogenic rf hot/cold source and with T{sub if} = 21 K. With another device, we achieved a mixer noise temperature of 35 K at 100 GHz increasing to 45 K at 79.5 and 110 GHZ. Coupled mixer gain of up to +3 dB and negative dynamic resistance on the first photon step were observed. The lowest noise temperature was obtained for an untuned single junction mixer at 80 GHz; T{sub R} = 41 K and T{sub M} = 20 K were measured.

• OSTI ID: 5922086
• Report Number(s): CONF-900944-; CODEN: IEMGA
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Magnetics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States), Vol. 27:2; Conference: 1990 applied superconductivity conference, Snowmass, CO (United States), 24-28 Sep 1990; ISSN 0018-9464
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
SUPERCONDUCTING JUNCTIONS
PERFORMANCE TESTING
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
SCALE MODELS
ALUMINIUM OXIDES
DESIGN
LAYERS
MIXTURES
NIOBIUM
TRANSFORMERS
TUNING
WAVEGUIDES
ALUMINIUM COMPOUNDS
CHALCOGENIDES
DISPERSIONS
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
ELEMENTS
EQUIPMENT
JUNCTIONS
METALS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
STRUCTURAL MODELS
TESTING
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
665412* - Superconducting Devices- (1992-)
665411 - Basic Superconductivity Studies- (1992-)