Cypher, Scott R. | Search NASA

NASA NTRS1995

Tunnel-Junction Mixers Perform Well At 205 GHz

Superconductor-Insulator Superconductor (SIS) tunnel junctions made of NbN/MgO/NbN and Nb/AlOx/Nb, with cross-sectional areas of about 0.30 and 0.25 micrometer(Sup2) respectively, fabricated and tested for use as mixers at frequencies near 205 GHz. Cross sections must be small to make capacitances of devices acceptably small for operation at this frequency. NbN and Nb good materials choices as superconductors because of high energy gap, and mechanically and electrically rugged and chemically stable.

Javadi, Hamid H. S.↗

NASA NTRS1993

A planar quasi-optical SIS receiver

A planar, quasi-optical SIS receiver operating at 230 GHz is described. The receiver consists of a 2 x 5 array of half wave dipole antennas with ten niobium-aluminum oxide-niobium SIS junctions on a quartz dielectric-filled parabola. The 1.4 GHz intermediate frequency is coupled from the mixer via coplanar strip transmission lines and 4:1 balun transformers. The receiver is operated at 4.2 K in a liquid helium immersion cryostat. We report accurate measurements of the performance of single receiver elements. A mixer noise temperature of 89 K DSB, receiver noise temperature of 156 K DSB, and conversion loss of 3 dB into a matched load have been obtained.

Stimson, Philip A.↗