English

Balanced superconductor-insulator-superconductor mixer on a 9~$\mu$m silicon membrane

Instrumentation and Detectors 2011-08-01 v2 Superconductivity

Abstract

We present a 380-520 GHz balanced superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer on a single silicon substrate. All radio-frequency (RF) circuit components are fabricated on a 9μ9 \mum thick membrane. The intermediate frequency (IF) is separately amplified and combined. The balanced mixer chip, using Nb/Al/Al2_{2}O3_{3}/Nb SIS junctions, is mounted in a tellurium copper waveguide block at 4.2 K using Au beam lead contacts. We find uncorrected minimum receiver double-sideband noise temperatures of 70 K and a noise suppression of up to 18 dB, measured within a 440-495 GHz RF and a 4-8 GHz IF bandwidth, representing state-of-the-art device performance.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1105.1956,
  title  = {Balanced superconductor-insulator-superconductor mixer on a 9~$\mu$m silicon membrane},
  author = {M. P. Westig and K. Jacobs and J. Stutzki and M. Schultz and M. Justen and C. E. Honingh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1105.1956},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

10 pages, 4 figures, Accepted by Superconductor Science & Technology