Engineering physics of superconducting hot-electron bolometer mixers

Superconducting hot-electron bolometers are presently the best performing mixing devices for the frequency range beyond 1.2 THz, where good quality superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) devices do not exist. Their physical appearance is very simple: an antenna consisting of a normal metal, sometimes a normal metal-superconductor bilayer, connected to a thin film of a narrow, short superconductor with a high resistivity in the normal state. The device is brought into an optimal operating regime by applying a dc current and a certain amount of local- oscillator power. Despite this technological simplicity its operation has been found to be controlled by many different aspects of superconductivity, all occurring simultaneously. A core ingredient is the understanding that there are two sources of resistance in a superconductor: a charge conversion resistance occurring at an normal-metal-superconductor interface and a resistance due to time- dependent changes of the superconducting phase. The latter is responsible for the actual mixing process in a non-uniform superconducting environment set up by the bias-conditions and the geometry. The present understanding indicates that further improvement needs to be found in the use of other materials with a faster energy-relaxation rate. Meanwhile several empirical parameters have become physically meaningful indicators of the devices, which will facilitate the technological developments.
This is an author-processed copy of an Invited contribution to the Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology dedicated to the 28th IEEE International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology (ISSTT2017)