Design and Development of SIS Mixers for ALMA Band 10

Abstract

We present the design and preliminary experimental results of superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixers for Atacama large millimeter array (ALMA) band 10 (780-950GHz) receivers. To achieve wide frequency coverage as well as low noise temperature, we integrated high current density (10 kA/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ) and small-sized (one micrometer in diameter) Nb/AlO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x</sub> /Nb SIS junctions with a tuning microstrip line using NbTiN ground plane and Al wiring layers. High quality NbTiN films with Tc reaching 14.5 K and Al films with residual resistivity ratio as large as 15 have been achieved. To minimize the waveguide transmission loss and facilitate the fabrication of mixer block, a full height waveguide was adopted. The waveguide probe was optimized to achieve low input impedance in the frequency range of 780-950 GHz while adopting a backshort cavity of zero depth. Preliminary RF testing with a Nb/Al microstrip tuning circuit demonstrated a DSB receiver noise temperature about 400 K at 832.5 GHz, which promises the accommodation of receiver performance in ALMA specification with low loss NbTiN/Al microstrip lines.