Harmonic mixing using a HTS step-edge Josephson junction at 0.6 THz frequency

Du, Jia and Pegrum, Colin and Gao, Xiang and Weily, Andrew R. and Zhang, Ting and Guo, Yingjie Jay and Foley, Cathy P. (2017) Harmonic mixing using a HTS step-edge Josephson junction at 0.6 THz frequency. IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 27 (4). ISSN 1051-8223 (https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2016.2636081)

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Abstract

A high-temperature superconducting (HTS) terahertz (THz) heterodyne mixer based on a thin-film antenna - coupled YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO) step-edge Josephson junction is presented. The frequency down-conversion from 0.6 THz to an intermediate frequency (IF) of 2 GHz was achieved using high-order harmonic mixing of a local oscillator (LO), thus removing the need to use a second THz source as the LO pumping source. The DC and RF characteristics of the harmonic mixer as well as the relationship of the IF output power versus the harmonic number were experimentally studied and compared with simulated results. Most of our measurements were made at 40K, but we also observed stable harmonic mixing at 77K which we believe has not been reported previously in HTS junction mixers.