AVS 51st International Symposium
    MEMS and NEMS Tuesday Sessions
       Session MN+MS+PS+TF-TuA

Paper MN+MS+PS+TF-TuA7
Fabrication of Wide-IF 200-300 GHz SIS Mixers with Suspended Metal Beam Leads Formed on SOI

Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 3:20 pm, Room 213C

Session: Nano/MEMS Manufacturing and Plasmas
Presenter: A.B. Kaul, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Authors: A.B. Kaul, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
B. Bumble, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
K.A. Lee, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
H.G. LeDuc, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
F. Rice, California Institute of Technology
J. Zmuidzinas, California Institute of Technology
Correspondent: Click to Email
We report on a novel fabrication process that uses SOI substrates and micromachining techniques to form wide-IF SIS mixer devices that have suspended metal beam leads for RF grounding. The mixers are formed on thin 25 µm membranes of Si, and are designed to operate in the 200 - 300 GHz band. Potential applications are in tropospheric chemistry, where increased sensitivity detectors and wide-IF bandwidth receivers are desired. They will also be useful in astrophysics to monitor absorption lines for CO at 230 GHz, to study distant, highly red-shifted galaxies by reducing scan times. Aside from a description of the fabrication process, electrical measurements of these Nb/Al-AlNx/Nb trilayer devices will also be presented. Since device quality is sensitive to thermal excursions, the new process appears to be compatible with conventional SIS device fabrication technology.