Influence of the direct response on the heterodyne sensitivity of hot electron bolometer mixers

We present a detailed experimental study of the direct detection effect in a small volume (0.15 μm×1 μm×3.5 nm) quasioptical NbN phonon cooled hot electron bolometer mixer at 673 GHz. We find that the small signal noise temperature, relevant for an astronomical observation, is 20% lower than the noise temperature obtained using 300 and 77 K calibration loads. In a separate set of experiments we show that the direct detection effect is caused by a combination of bias current reduction when switching from the 77 to the 300 K load in combination with the bias current dependence of the receiver gain. The bias current dependence of the receiver gain is shown to be mainly caused by the current dependence of the mixer gain.