Low-noise heterodyne mixing with NbN microbolometers at 800 GHz

It is clear that NbN based low noise bolometric mixers are feasible, according to research into mixed performance of NbN transition edge microbolometers. This research involved investigating parallel arrays of three NbN microbridges. Mixing two oscillator sources made it possible to demonstrate the heterodyne process in NbN microbolometers at 806 GHz. It is not expected that the mixer performance of microbolometers will degrade in the THz frequency range.