Low-Loss, Thermally Insulating, and Flexible Rectangular Dielectric Waveguide for Sub-THz-Signal Coupling in Superconducting Receivers

• Published in: IEEE transactions on terahertz science and technology 2020-03, Vol.10 (2), p.190-199
• Main Authors: Zhu, Hao-Tian, Liu, Dong, Hu, Jie, Li, Sheng, Shi, Sheng-Cai, Xue, Quan, Che, Wenquan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Astronomy instrument; Attenuation; dielectric transmission line; Dielectric waveguides; Dielectrics; Insertion loss; Noise temperature; Radio astronomy; Receivers; Receivers & amplifiers; rectangular dielectric waveguide (RDW); SIS (superconductors); superconducting receiver; Superconductivity; terahertz (THz); Transmission lines
• ISSN: 2156-342X; 2156-3446
• DOI: 10.1109/TTHZ.2019.2963688

Dielectric waveguides have potential as transmission lines in subterahertz (sub-THz) applications due to their low-loss. A new application of a rectangular dielectric waveguide (RDW) for a THz superconducting receiver system for radio astronomy is investigated and demonstrated for the first time. The RDW can be used to transmit sub-THz local oscillator (LO) signals into the cryostat for driving the superconductor insulator superconductor mixer, with very low heat transfer. A series of RDWs with different lengths are fabricated. The measured average attenuation constants of the RDW are 0.034 and 0.069 dB/mm at 3.4 and 300 K measurement environments over 240-300 GHz, respectively. The double-sideband system noise temperature of the receiver system is also measured. With this LO signal feeding system, there is only 0.69 mW thermal transfer power from the 300 to the 3.4 K cold stage. Compared to traditional pumping signal feeding schemes, such as the horn-to-horn structure and beam splitter method, this approach outperforms the traditional schemes in terms of feeding flexibility, insertion loss, and thermal isolation for the cryostat. The proposed RDW can be widely applied to superconducting receivers for radio astronomy in the future.