Far- and Mid-IR Heterodyne Detectors Based on MgB2

This will be an overview of our work on the development of hot-electron bolometers (HEB) and Josephson junctions (JJ) using thin films of high-TC MgB2 superconductor for applications as heterodyne detectors in the far-IR and mid-IR spectral ranges. Besides the high operating temperature (15–20 K), the MgB2 material provides a large intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth $\sim 6$-7 GHz for HEB mixers and record high operating frequency $\sim 2$ THz for JJ mixers.