Optimizing measurement SNR for weak near-field scanning applications

Conventional near-field scanning techniques often employ a general setup such as: broadband near-field probe output connected to a chain of amplifiers through a coaxial cable to a spectrum analyzer. In this paper, we investigated how the signal to noise ratio is influenced by the coaxial connection between the probe output and the first amplifier, types of probes, cooling the probes with liquid nitrogen and the amplifier's noise figure. Eliminating cabling between probe and first amplifier, and using a low noise amplifiers helped increase signal-to-noise ratio by ~10dB. Further, liquid nitrogen is used to cool down a tunable resonant probe. This increases quality factor of the resonance and improves sensitivity. Thus, SNR is further improved by 10-12dB compared to a similar broadband setup.