A 4.7 THz HEB QCL receiver for STO2
D. J. Hayton (SRON–Netherlands Institute for Space Research)
Jian Rong Gao (SRON–Netherlands Institute for Space Research, TU Delft - QN/Gao Lab)
Wouter Laauwen (SRON–Netherlands Institute for Space Research)
B. Mirzaei (TU Delft - QN/Gao Lab)
Andrey Khudchenko (SRON–Netherlands Institute for Space Research)
Jenna L. Kloosterman (Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, CA)
Dmitry Paveliev (Lobachevskii State University of Nizhny Novgorod)
Qing Hu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Wilt Kao (LongWave Photonics LLC)
Vladimir Vax (Russian Academy of Sciences)
Chris K. Walker (University of Arizona)
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Abstract
We report on a 4.7 THz heterodyne receiver designed for high resolution spectroscopy of the astronomically important neutral oxygen (OI) line at 4.745 THz. The receiver is based around a hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer and quantum cascade laser (QCL) local oscillator. This receiver has been developed to fly on the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory (STO-2), a balloon-borne 0.8 m telescope observing from an altitude of 44 km for 14 days or more. We measure a double sideband receiver noise temperature of 815 K (~ 7 times quantum noise) with a noise temperature IF bandwidth of 3.5 GHz. We describe the receiver performance expected in flight and outline novel approaches to QCL amplitude and frequency stabilization.