An Integrated Millimeter-Wave Satellite Radiometer Working at Room-Temperature with High Photon Conversion Efficiency
1 January 2022·
,,,·
0 min read
Kerlos Atia Abdalmalak
Gabriel Santamaría Botello
Mallika Suresh
Enderson Falcón-Gómez
Alejandro Rivera Lavado
Luis Enrique García Muñoz
Abstract
In this work, the design of an integrated 183GHz radiometer frontend for earth observation applications on satellites is presented. By means of the efficient electro-optic modulation of a laser pump with the observed millimeter-wave signal followed by the detection of the generated optical sideband, a room-temperature low-noise receiver frontend alternative to conventional Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) or Schottky mixers is proposed. Efficient millimeter-wave to 1550 nm upconversion is realized via a nonlinear optical process in a triply resonant high-Q Lithium Niobate (LN) Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) resonator. By engineering a micromachined millimeter-wave cavity that maximizes the overlap with the optical modes while guaranteeing phase matching, the system has a predicted normalized photon-conversion efficiency ≈10−1 per mW pump power, surpassing the state-of-the-art by around three orders of magnitude at millimeter-wave frequencies. A piezo-driven millimeter-wave tuning mechanism is designed to compensate for the fabrication and assembly tolerances and reduces the complexity of the manufacturing process.
Type
Publication
Sensors, 22(6), 2400
Status
Peer-reviewed
Authors
Lead, Photonics
Mallika Suresh (Mika) is a Research Fellow at the Physics Department of the University of Otago and the Photonics Lead of Tuwhiri. For the last 5 years, her research has been focused on electro-optic nonlinear mixing of terahertz signals with optical modes in whispering gallery mode resonators. Before that, during her PhD, Mika worked with femtosecond pulses in gas-filled hollow-core fibres under the supervision of Prof. Philip Russell and Dr. Francesco Tani at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light. Soon after joining Harald’s team, she supervised the setting up of a femtosecond laser ablation system at the Physics Department for (among other applications) the fabrication of dielectric whispering gallery mode resonators for nonlinear optical experiments. She was the Agnes-Blackie Research Fellow of Te Whai Ao – Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies in 2024 – 2026 and now is an Associate Investigator in Te Whai Ao. Mika is also leading collaborations with international experts in the field of terahertz photonics such as Prof. Withawat Withayachumnankul at the University of Adelaide and Prof. Ileana-Cristina Benea-Chelmus at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne as part of the Tuwhiri programme.