A submillimeter-wave planar low noise Schottky receiver

Abstract

A planar quasi-optical Schottky receiver based on the quasi-integrated horn antenna has been developed and tested over the 230-280-GHz bandwidth. The receiver consists of a planar GaAs Schottky diode placed at the feed of a dipole-probe suspended on a thin dielectric membrane in an etched-pyramidal horn cavity. The antenna-mixer results in a measured DSB (double sideband) conversion loss and noise temperature at 258 GHz of 7.2 dB+or-0.5 dB and 1310 K+or-70 K, respectively, at room temperature. The low cost of fabrication and simplicity of the design make it ideal for submillimeter-wave receivers requiring a 10% bandwidth. >