Tunable Antenna-Coupled Intersubband Terahertz (TACIT) Mixers: The Quantum Limit Without the Quantum Liquid

At present, nearly quantum-limited heterodyne receivers for Terahertz (THz) frequencies require cooling to temperatures below 4K. We are working to build semiconductor-based “tunable antenna-coupled intersubband terahertz” (TACIT) heterodyne mixers for 1-5 THz. We predict that they can achieve single-sideband noise temperatures of a few hundred K with intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth >10 GHz, while operating at lattice temperatures >20 K and requiring local oscillator (LO) power ~ 1 $\mu$W.