Inexpensive Receiver Components for Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelengths

Abstract

In recent years there has been excellent progress in the development of millimeter and submillimeter wavelength components such as mixers and multipliers. Particularly, SIS mixers have yielded sensitivity near the quantum limit at frequencies approaching 1 THz and hotelectron bolometric mixers now promise similar performance above 1 'THz. However, for many applications the cost of building and maintaining cryogenic systems is prohibitive. In such cases, GaAs Schottky diode technology remains a very attractive option, provided the sensitivity requirement is not so great, particularly now that planar (whiskerless) diodes are yielding good performance. However, even in the case of Schottky mixers and multipliers, the cost of machining the waveguide blocks can be prohibitive, particularly at THz frequencies and/or when array applications are considered. In this paper we summarize two techniques which allow low cost manufacturing of millimeter and submillimeter wavelength components.