Quantum multitone simulations of saturation in SIS mixers

Conference item

The Quantum Theory of Mixing developed by Tucker provides a solid framework for understanding the behaviour of SIS mixers, and subsequent developments allow the simulation of complete mixer circuits. These methods operate, however, under the assumption of small signal levels, and so neglect the non-linear behaviour of the signal path. The non-linearity of the mixer's response to applied signals is of vital importance to the calibration of SIS receiver systems. We have previously reported(1) a procedure for calculating the full quantum behaviour of tunnel junction circuits under multiple high-level signals, allowing the accurate prediction of the saturation characteristics of SIS mixers. In this paper, we apply our procedure to both an idealized SIS mixer and one of our previously tested 700 GHz finline mixers. We find that the small signal behaviour predicted by our procedure agrees well with other simulation methods, and that the saturation properties of both of these mixers differ from that predicted by previous estimates of saturation behaviour.

Authors: Grimes, P; Withington, S; Yassin, G; Kittara, P

• Publication status: Published
• Journal: MILLIMETER AND SUBMILLIMETER DETECTORS FOR ASTRONOMY II
• Volume: 5498
• Pages: 158-167
• Publication date: 2004-01-01
• Event title: Conference on Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors for Astronomy II
• DOI: 10.1117/12.549781
• ISSN: 0277-786X
• ISBN: 0819454303
• Keywords: Tucker theory; saturation; SIS mixers