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US 5,790,078 AGranted
Superconducting mixer antenna array
AssigneeNEC Corporation
InventorsKatsumi Suzuki, Youichi Enomoto, Shoji Tanaka, Keiichi Yamaguchi, Arthur T. Murphy
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A superconducting patch antenna array, operative at a temperature lower than or equal to that of liquid nitrogen, includes a superconducting mixer comprising at least one non-linear Josephson junction to transform the received high frequency signal to a lower intermediate frequency for purposes of reducing the transmission loss and thereby increasing the antenna performance.
Claims6
A superconductor mixing antenna array comprising:
- a substrate;
- a plurality of superconductor film wiring patterns formed on one surface of said substrate, each superconductor film wiring pattern comprising:
- an antenna patch for receiving a radio frequency signal,
- a non-linear superconductor element connected to each antenna patch for transforming the frequency of the received radio frequency signal to an intermediate frequency signal by mixing with a local oscillator signal, thus forming an antenna/mixer element, and
- a superconductor feed network connected to each of the antenna/mixers which transmits the intermediate frequency signal to signal detection means at its output;
- and
- a ground plane on the opposite surface of the substrate.
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A process for the fabrication of a superconductor mixing antenna array comprising a non-linear superconductor element comprising the steps of:
- depositing a protection layer on a substrate in the region where the non-linear element is to be formed;
- focusing an ion beam on selected areas of the protected substrate where the non-linear element is to be formed;
- removing the protection layer;
- depositing a superconductor oxide film on both the irradiated and non-irradiated regions of the substrate to form modified superconductor film regions and un-modified superconductor regions, respectively;
- patterning an area encompassing the modified superconductor film region to form the non-linear element;
- and
- patterning the un-modified superconductor regions to form the antenna patches and the feed network.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.