Terahertz-wave sub-harmonic mixer based on silicon carbide platform

Abstract

A sub-harmonic mixer for the 220-325GHz band was developed using a SiC platform for the first time. An anti-parallel Fermi-level managed barrier diode pair was monolithically integrated with waveguide couplers and filters on an epi-layer transferred SiC substrate. The sub-harmonic mixer chip was assembled in a waveguide-input package with a broadband transimpedance amplifier. The lowest obtained noise equivalent power was as low as 5×10^-19W/Hz for a signal frequency of 300GHz and local oscillator (LO) frequency of 145GHz with an LO power of only 100µW.