21-22 September 2020
Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy
Europe/Berlin timezone
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Contribution

Smart Ambient-Temperature Very Low Noise LNAs for Radio Astronomy Arrays

Content

Most radio telescopes can have greatly expended survey speed and imaging capability by utilizing multiple receivers either as feed clusters, phased-array feeds, or a larger number of individual antennas. The number of receivers is often limited by the cost of the cryogenic cooling required for sensitivity at frequencies > 1 GHz. This paper will describe a new class of LNAs for the low microwave range that operate at ambient temperature and are “smart” in that they include functions such as noise calibration, tuning, switching, and monitoring within the LNA package. In addition, the LNAs are powered and controlled by just one wire, the output coaxial cable. A first generation of this new class of LNAs has been developed for detection and location of fast radio bursts (FRBs) in a 110 x 5m array at the Caltech Radio Observatory in Owens Valley, CA. These DSA110 LNAs have noise temperature in the 7 to 9 K range to realize system noise temperatures in the 22 to 25 K range in the frequency band of 1.28 to 1.53 GHz. Over 40 of the LNAs have now been completed and have internal, temperature-compensated, noise calibration signals so they can be directly attached to the dual -linear polarized feed without the directional coupler usually required for calibration. Further development of this LNA for a proposed DSA2000 array is in process and will include internal cooling to -40C of the InP HEMT input transistor utilizing a Peltier micro-cooler. This cooling is motivated by the large decrease in noise temperature with physical temperature measured for the DSA110 LNAs; the noise decreases by approximately a factor of two upon cooling from +40C to -40C, a much greater factor than the change in absolute temperature, 313K to 233K. This change is believed to be due to a large decrease in the transistor hot-electron noise, an effect not noted in previous studies and a subject of a theoretical study at Caltech.