Realization and preliminary measurements on a 94 GHz SIS mixer

TL;DR

This paper reports on the development and initial testing of a 94 GHz SIS mixer receiver designed for astrophysical observations, achieving a noise temperature close to the state of the art.

Contribution

It presents the realization and preliminary measurements of a SIS mixer for a multi-band receiver, contributing to high-frequency astrophysical instrumentation.

Findings

Achieved a noise temperature of 110 K at 94 GHz.

Compared performance with existing state-of-the-art results.

Established an upper limit to the receiver's noise temperature.

Abstract

In this paper we present the realization and a preliminary characterization of a SIS based receiver. It has been developed for the MASTER experiment that consists in a three-band SIS receiver (94, 225 and 345 GHz) for astrophysical observations through the atmospheric windows available at high altitude dry sites. The measurements performed establish an upper limit to the overall receiver noise temperature. A comparison has been tried with the MASTER requirements and with state of the art results. A noise figure of 110 K has been obtained at 94 GHz, about 22 times the quantum limit.