Noise bandwidth of diffusion-cooled hot-electron bolometers

Author

Schoelkopf, R.J. ; Burke, P.J. ; Prober, D.E. ; Karasik, B. ; Skalare, A. ; McGrath, W.R. ; Gaidis, M.C. ; Bumble, B. ; LeDuc, H.G.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Appl. Phys. & Phys., Yale Univ., New Haven, CT, USA

Volume

7

Issue

2

fYear

1997

fDate

6/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

3576

Lastpage

3579

Abstract

We present studies of the input and output noise of diffusion cooled hot-electron bolometer mixers. By simultaneously measuring the gain and noise (with a 14 GHz LO) as a function of intermediate frequency for a 0.16 /spl mu/m diffusion cooled Nb device, we show that the noise bandwidth (4 GHz) is larger than the gain bandwidth (2.4 GHz). The output noise is 55 K, and the mixer noise is very low, 340 K DSB. This shows that diffusion cooled devices have low noise over a broad enough intermediate frequency band for practical applications in THz receivers.

Keywords

bolometers; hot carriers; niobium; submillimetre wave mixers; submillimetre wave receivers; superconducting device noise; superconducting device testing; superconducting microbridges; superconducting microwave devices; thermal noise; 0.16 mum; 14 GHz; 2.4 GHz; 4 GHz; Johnson noise; Nb; THz receivers; conversion efficiency; diffusion cooled Nb device; diffusion cooled hot-electron bolometer mixers; gain bandwidth; input noise; intermediate frequency; mixer noise; noise bandwidth; output noise; thermal fluctuation noise; Bandwidth; Bolometers; Fluctuations; Frequency conversion; Low-frequency noise; Microelectronics; Mixers; Physics; Space technology; Superconducting device noise;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Applied Superconductivity, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1051-8223

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/77.622173

Filename

622173