Mixer Development and Receiver Measurement for Millimeter- and Submillimeter-Wave Astronomy

• Main Authors: Yuh-Jing Hwang, 黃裕津
• Other Authors: Tah-Hsiung Chu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/67872997173221931377

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 電信工程學研究所 === 93 === In this dissertation, design and development of millimeter-wave subharmonically pumped (SHP) mixers, millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave heterodyne receiver systems for radio-astronomical astronomy are presented. The mixer development includes the monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuits (MMIC) and the packaged modules. The heterodyne receiver measurements includes AMiBA (Array of Microwave Background Anisotropy) receiver and SMA (Submillimeter Array) receiver. The W-band SHP MMIC mixers described in this dissertation are diode mixers and HEMT gate mixer. The SHP diode mixers are fabricated by TRW Inc., and the SHP HEMT gate mixer is fabricated by WIN Semiconductor Corp. For packaged modules, the SHP diode mixer prototype shows 36-GHz bandwidth covering 78-114GHz RF frequency and 0.5-18GHz double sideband IF frequency under 48 GHz LO pumping signal. The broadband design approach for SHP diode mixer is discussed and implemented. The improved SHP diode mixers show 1-20GHz IF frequency with only ±1.5 dB conversion fluctuation. For HEMT gate mixer, extended Curtice model is applied to formulate the conversion gain. The device parameters are extracted to calculate the predicted conversion gain. The circuit is simulated using the HP/EEsof harmonic balance analysis. The measured results of maximum conversion gain agree with the simulation results. The wideband heterodyne receiver for W-band AMiBA is developed using the developed SHP diode mixers. This receiver requires a 20 GHz IF instantaneous bandwidth for extremely faint cosmic microwave background radiation detection. In order to use the analog correlation for the received signal processing, the noise temperature and receiver conversion gain fluctuation over the operation bandwidth should be minimized. The system design is revised after the measurement of prototype receivers. The first set of the production receiver shows an improvement on the receiver conversion gain flatness and receiver noise temperature. Integration and testing of two sets of 600-696GHz heterodyne receivers are also described in this dissertation. One of the critical testing is to measure the receiver vector beam pattern for optics alignment verification. This measurement is basically to perform vector network analysis in the submillimeter wave range. Based on a new frequency synthesis and conversion formulation, an effective and stable vector network analysis configuration is developed for 690GHz beam pattern measurement. With the beam pattern measurement the receiver optics are characterized. The calibrated receiver is then further conducted for the measurement of IF frequency coverage, receiver noise temperature and the noise contribution analysis. These two receivers are now installed into the SMA telescopes for astronomy observation. In general, the development on the devices and receiver systems for radio astronomical telescopes is a complicated engineering work. It needs a well-organized team with well-disciplined engineers in different fields, e.g. electromagnetic waves, electronics, superconductivity, cryogenics, vacuum technology, and precision machining. Compared to all the knowledge required for the radio telescope, the techniques described in this dissertation is only a small portion. In addition using in the millimeter and submillimeter wave astronomy instrumentation, the developed SHP mixer can find applications in W-band communication system and the developed 690 GHz vector network analysis configuration is capable in the antenna or circuit characterization with frequency up to 1THz.