An initial concept of a resonance phase matched junction-loaded travelling wave parametric tripler

Conference item

In this paper, we investigate the possibility of utilising a tunnel-junction loaded transmission line as high efficiency parametric frequency multiplier. Through the interaction between the injected primary tone and the nonlinear medium, higher harmonic tones can be generated through wave-mixing process. Here, we aim to maximise the third harmonic wave generation. We first establish a theoretical framework outlining the mechanism for generating the third harmonic component from a single pump wave propagating in a nonlinear transmission line. We begin by demonstrating that strong third harmonic generation is possible with the resonance phase matching technique, albeit with an extremely narrow operational bandwidth. To broaden the bandwidth, we modify the dispersion engineering element of our circuit and show that broadband operation is achievable, while preventing unwanted harmonic tone growth. We extend this calculation from the microwave to the millimetre and sub-millimetre regimes and demonstrate that by adjusting the parameters of the junctions and the dispersion engineering circuits, we can achieve high conversion efficiency close to 1 THz.

Authors: Tan, B-K

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: National Radio Astronomy Observatory
• Host title: ISSTT 2024 Proceedings
• Series: NRAO ISSTT Proceedings
• Publication date: 2025-05-16
• Acceptance date: 2024-07-15
• Event title: 33rd IEEE International Symposium on Space Terahertz Technology (ISSTT 2024)
• Event location: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
• Event website: https://web.cvent.com/event/ed54f48e-ce7d-4361-8d7f-7c2e997215a6/summary
• Event start date: 2024-04-07
• Event end date: 2024-04-11
• Language: English
• Keywords: superconductor-insulator-superconductor (sis); probe antenna; heterodyne mixers; circular waveguide; focal plane array