Dr. Boon Kok Tan

Abstract:

We present the design of a broadband superconductor-insulator- superconductor (SIS) mixer operating near 700 GHz. A key feature of our design is the utilisation of a new type of waveguide to planar circuit transition comprising a unilateral finline taper. This transition is markedly easier to design, simulate and fabricate than the antipodal finline we employed previously. The finline taper and the superconducting circuitry are deposited on a 15 μm thick silicon substrate. The employment of the very thin substrate, achieved using Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technology, makes it easy to match the incoming signal to the loaded waveguide. The lightweight mixer chip is held in the E-plane of the waveguide using gold beam leads, avoiding the need for deep grooves in the waveguide wall. This new design yields a significantly shorter chip, free of serrations and a wider RF bandwidth. Since tuning and all other circuits are integrated on the mixer chip, the mixer block is extremely simple, comprising a feed horn and a waveguide section without any complicated mechanical features. We employ a new type of smooth-walled horn which exhibits excellent beam circularity and low cross polarisation, comparable to the conventional corrugated horn, and yet is easier to fabricate. The horn is machined by standard milling with a drill tool shaped into the horn profile. In this paper, we describe the detailed design of the mixer chip including electromagnetic simulations, and the mixer performance obtained with SuperMix simulations. We also present the preliminary measurements of the smooth-walled horn radiation patterns near the mixer operating frequencies. © 2010 SPIE.

Abstract:

We present the design of two niobium singleended Superconductor-Insulator-Superconductor (SIS) mixers optimized to work in the frequency range of 600–700 GHz. A key feature of this new mixer design is the utilization of a unilateral finline taper. This transition is significantly easier to design and simulate than the previously employed antipodal finline, and more importantly it simplifies the chip fabrication considerably since the fins do not overlap at any stage. RF power propagating in the finline is coupled to the microstrip either directly from the slotline to microstrip, or more efficiently via a coplanar waveguide (CPW). Another novel feature of our design is the fabrication of the mixer chip on a very thin silicon substrate which will be achieved using Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technology. This will allow easy matching of the incoming signal from the feed horn to the loaded waveguide and allows the lightweight mixer chip to be held in the E-plane of the waveguide using gold beam leads, eliminating the need for a deep groove in the waveguide wall. These new features yield a significantly shorter chip and allow wider RF bandwidth since the excitation of higher order modes in the groove has been avoided. The mixer block is extremely simple, composing a smooth-walled horn and a waveguide section without any complicated mechanical features. In this paper, we present the details of the mixer chip, including various transition sections, tuning circuits and mixer block designs, supported by electromagnetic simulations. We describe the design procedure in detail and predict the full mixer performance using the SuperMix software package.

Abstract:

We used Spitzer Space Telescope 3.6, 8.0, 70 and 160 μm data, James Clerk Maxwell Telescope HARP-B CO J = (3-2) data, National Radio Astronomy Observatory 12 m telescope CO J= (1-0) data and Very Large Array H i data to investigate the relations among polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), cold (∼20 K) dust, molecular gas and atomic gas within NGC 2403, an SABcd galaxy at a distance of 3.13 Mpc. The dust surface density is mainly a function of the total (atomic and molecular) gas surface density and galactocentric radius. The gas-to-dust ratio monotonically increases with radius, arying from ∼100 in the nucleus to ∼400 at 5.5 kpc. The slope of the gas-to-dust ratio is close to that of the oxygen abundance, suggesting that metallicity strongly affects the gas-to-dust ratio within this galaxy. The exponential scale length of the radial profile for the CO J = (3-2) emission is statistically identical to the scale length for the stellar continuum-subtracted 8 μm (PAH 8 μm) emission. However, CO J equals; (3-2) and PAH 8 μm surface brightnesses appear uncorrelated when examining sub-kpc-sized regions. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.

Abstract:

We present the results of large-area ¹²COJ = 3-2 emission mapping of three nearby field galaxies, NGC628, NGC3521, and NGC3627, completed at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope as part of the Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey. These galaxies all have moderate to strong ¹²COJ = 3-2 detections over large areas of the fields observed by the survey, showing resolved structure and dynamics in their warm/dense molecular gas disks. All three galaxies were part of the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey sample, and as such have excellent published multiwavelength ancillary data. These data sets allow us to examine the star formation properties, gas content, and dynamics of these galaxies on sub-kiloparsec scales. We find that the global gas depletion time for dense/warm molecular gas in these galaxies is consistent with other results for nearby spiral galaxies, indicating this may be independent of galaxy properties such as structures, gas compositions, and environments. Similar to the results from The H I Nearby Galaxy Survey, we do not see a correlation of the star formation efficiency with the gas surface density consistent with the Schmidt-Kennicutt law. Finally, we find that the star formation efficiency of the dense molecular gas traced by ¹²COJ = 3-2 is potentially flat or slightly declining as a function of molecular gas density, the ¹²COJ = 3-2/J = 1-0 ratio (in contrast to the correlation found in a previous study into the starburst galaxy M83), and the fraction of total gas in molecular form. © 2010. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.