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A 650-GHz Band SIS Receiver for Balloon-Borne Limb-Emission Sounder

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Abstract

A superconducting low-noise receiver has been developed for atmospheric observations in the 650-GHz band. A waveguide-type tunerless mixer mount was designed based on one for the 200-GHz band. Two niobium SIS (superconductor-insulator-superconductor) junctions were connected by a tuning inductance to cancel the junction capacitance. We designed the ωRnCj product to be 8 and the current density to be 5.5 kA/cm2. The measured receiver noise temperature in DSB was 126-259 K in the frequency range of 618-660 GHz at an IF of 5.2 GHz, and that in the IF band (5-7 GHz) was 126-167 K at 621 GHz. Direct detection measurements using a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) showed the frequency response of the SIS mixer to be in the range of about 500-700 GHz. The fractional bandwidth was about 14%. The SIS receiver will be installed in a balloon-borne limb-emission sounder that will be launched from Sanriku Balloon Center in Japan.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Communications Research Laboratory, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, 4-2-1, Nukui-Kitamachi, Koganei, Tokyo, 184-8795, Japan

    Yoshihisa Irimajiri, Takeshi Manabe, Satoshi Ochiai & Harunobu Masuko

  2. Nobeyama Radio Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Minamimaki, Minamisaku, Nagano, 384-1305, Japan

    Takashi Noguchi

  3. Purple Mountain Observatory, 2 West Beijing Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210008, China

    Sheng-Cai Shi

Authors
  1. Yoshihisa Irimajiri
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  2. Takashi Noguchi
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  3. Sheng-Cai Shi
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  4. Takeshi Manabe
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  5. Satoshi Ochiai
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  6. Harunobu Masuko
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Irimajiri, Y., Noguchi, T., Shi, SC. et al. A 650-GHz Band SIS Receiver for Balloon-Borne Limb-Emission Sounder. International Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves 21, 519–526 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006623518185

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006623518185

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