Title :
A 4.7 THz HEB/QCL heterodyne receiver for STO-2
Author :
Hayton, Darren J. ; Kloosterman, Jenna L. ; Jian-Rong Gao ; Vercruyssen, Nathan ; Walker, Christopher K. ; Qing Hu ; Tsung-Yu Kao
Author_Institution :
SRON Netherlands Inst. for Space Res., Groningen, Netherlands
Abstract :
We report on a 4.7 THz heterodyne receiver being developed to fly on the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory (STO-2) balloon platform. The receiver is based on a single pixel hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer pumped by a 4.7 THz 3rd order distributed feedback quantum cascade laser (QCL) as local oscillator and is designed for high resolution spectroscopy of the astronomically important neutral oxygen (OI) line at 4.745 THz. We describe the expected receiver performance and outline novel approaches to QCL amplitude and frequency/phase stabilization.
Keywords :
distributed feedback lasers; high altitude stratospheric platforms; hot carriers; quantum cascade lasers; terahertz spectroscopy; HEB heterodyne receiver; QCL heterodyne receiver; STO-2; distributed feedback quantum cascade laser; frequency 4.7 THz; high resolution spectroscopy; hot electron bolometer mixer; local oscillator; neutral oxygen; stratospheric terahertz observatory balloon platform; Bolometers; Distributed feedback devices; Mixers; Noise; Observatories; Quantum cascade lasers; Receivers;
Conference_Titel :
Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz waves (IRMMW-THz), 2014 39th International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Tucson, AZ
DOI :
10.1109/IRMMW-THz.2014.6956203
