Low noise HEB/QCL integrated heterodyne receiver at 2.7 THz

In this paper, we present a low noise integrated heterodyne receiver at 2.7 THz. This heterodyne receiver is based on a superconducting hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixer and a low power consumption quantum cascade laser (QCL) that are both integrated on the same 4 K stage of a pulse tube cooler. We measured the noise temperature of the HEB/QCL integrated heterodyne receiver by using hot and cold blackbody loads in vacuum. The lowest double sideband receiver noise temperature is about 1000 K at 2.7 THz, and reduced to 500 K after eliminating the quasi-optical losses. In addition, the HEB/QCL integrated heterodyne receiver demonstrates an intermediate frequency (IF) noise bandwidth of 4 GHz.