Reduced Noise Temperatures of a THz NbN Hot Electron Bolometer Mixer

In this article, we measure the double sideband (DSB) receiver noise temperature (<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\text{rec}}^{\text{DSB}})$</tex-math></inline-formula> of an NbN hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer at three local oscillator frequencies of 1.6, 2.5, and 5.3 THz. The HEB has cleaned contact interfaces with a 200-nm-thick Au layer. The measured <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\text{rec}}^{\text{DSB}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> values are 530 ± 11 K, 640 ± 18 K, and 2190 ±150 K at 1.6, 2.5, and 5.3 THz, respectively, using an air setup with total optical losses of 2.60 ± 0.04, 2.63 ± 0.16, and 4.70 ± 0.24 dB, respectively. We derived low mixer noise temperatures (<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\text{mixer}}^{\text{DSB}})$</tex-math></inline-formula> of 240 ± 6 K at 1.6 THz and 290 ± 13 K at 2.5 THz, achieving over 30% improvement compared to published NbN HEB mixers. This enhancement can reduce the integration time of a heterodyne instrument by roughly a factor of 2. At 5.3 THz, <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_{\text{mixer}}^{\text{DSB}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> is 620 ± 55 K, showing limited improvement due to nonoptimized antenna geometry. These results also contribute to understanding the device physics of a wide HEB (4 μm) at high frequencies. The mixer was developed for the proposed Orbiting Astronomical Satellite for Investigating Stellar Systems and Single Aperture Large Telescope for Universe Studies (concept) missions.