Design and fabrication of superconducting HEB mixer

This paper describes the design and fabrication of superconducting hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer based on ultra-thin superconducting NbN films. The high quality films were epitaxially grown on high resistance Si substrates. The device was fabricated by magnetron sputtering, electron beam lithography (EBL), reactive ion etching (RIE), lithography, and so on. The device’s resistance-temperature (R-T) curves and current-voltage (I-V) curves were studied. The results of THz response of the device are presented. Y-factor technique was used to measure the device’s noise temperature. When the device was irradiated with a laser radiation of 2.5 THz, the obtained lowest noise temperature of the device was 2213 K. Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Nos. 2006CB601006, 2007CB310404) and High-Tech Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2006AA12Z120)