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A low-noise cryogenically-cooled 8–12 GHz HEMT Amplifier for future space applications

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Abstract

A two-stage 8–12 GHz (X-band) cryogenically-cooled Low-Noise Amplifier (LNA) has been developed with a commercial pseudomorphic HEMT on AsGa substrate. In a first step, different commercial transistors have been fully characterized from 300 K to 20 K using a new method to measure the four noise parameters. Preliminary results have allowed the selection of the best device. This enabled the design of the two-stage LNA with the help of a microwave CAD software.

In a second step, the LNA has been characterized at 300 K, 30 K and 4 K. As the physical temperature decreased from 300 K to 30 K, the LNA exhibited an average gain increase of 2 dB and as much as a fourfold reduction of noise temperature. A noise figure of 22.5 K and a gain of 23 dB have been achieved at 30 K around 10 GHz. The noise temperature has been furthermore reduced to 20 K by cooling the amplifier at the liquid helium temperature (4.2 K). Different methods to measure the noise characteristics of the amplifier are widely developed in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DEMIRM, Observatoire de Paris, 61, Av. de l’Observatoire, 75014, Paris, France

    Corinne Boutez, Pascal Febvre & Gérard Beaudin

  2. Institut d’Electronique Fondamentale, Univ. Paris Sud, bât. 220, 91405, Orsay, France

    Paul Crozat & Valérie Danelon

  3. CNES, 18 Avenue, E. Belin, 31055, Toulouse Cedex, France

    Michel Chaubet

Authors
  1. Corinne Boutez
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  2. Paul Crozat
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  3. Valérie Danelon
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  4. Michel Chaubet
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  5. Pascal Febvre
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  6. Gérard Beaudin
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Boutez, C., Crozat, P., Danelon, V. et al. A low-noise cryogenically-cooled 8–12 GHz HEMT Amplifier for future space applications. Int J Infrared Milli Waves 18, 85–99 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02677898

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02677898

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