A passive heterodyne, hot electron bolometer imager operating at 850 GHz

作者：Gerecht Eyal^*; Gu Dazhen; You Lixing; Yngvesson K Sigfrid

来源：IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 2008, 56(5): 1083-1091.

DOI：10.1109/TMTT.2008.921289

• heterodyne detection
• hot electron bolometer (HEB) detectors
• quasi-optical coupling
• terahertz antennas
• terahertz imaging

We report on the development and characterization of a passive heterodyne hot electron bolometer (HEB) imager operating at 850 GHz. HEB detectors provide unprecedented sensitivity and spectral resolution at terahertz frequencies covering the frequency range of 0.5-5 THz. Terahertz imagers based on HEB technology have sufficient sensitivity to operate in a passive imaging mode, thus eliminating the need for active illumination. We demonstrated a fully automated passive imaging system based on our HEB technology. The front-end heterodyne detector includes a quasi-optically coupled HEB device in close proximity to a monolithic microwave integrated circuit low-noise IF amplifier. We integrated a compact commercial harmonic multiplier local oscillator (LO) source to provide the LO biasing for the HEB detector. Our high spectral resolution terahertz imager has a noise equivalent temperature difference value of 0.4 K and a spatial resolution of approximately 4 mm.

• 出版日期2008-5