Correlating Quasi-Optical Coupling Efficiency with Measured Receiver Noise Temperature in Metalens Coupled THz HEB Mixer

Abstract

Quasi-optical coupling serves as the critical interface in terahertz (THz) heterodyne receiver systems, enabling efficient transfer of incident radiation to photomixers through a focusing element and a planar microwave antenna. With recent advances in nanofabrication, planar dielectric metalenses have emerged as promising alternatives to conventional refractive optics due to their compactness and scalability. However, unlike conventional elliptical silicon lenses that are often treated as nearly ideal optical components, the focusing characteristics of metalenses, including both phase and amplitude, strongly depend on the local deflection angle across the aperture, creating an urgent need to quantitatively understand the coupling between a dielectric metalens and a planar antenna. In this work, we present a quasi-optical coupling analysis between a planar Si metalens and a logarithmic spiral antenna integrated with a THz superconducting NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixer operating at 1.63 THz using spherical-coordinate vectorial integration. By combining the angular radiation profile of the spiral antenna with the propagated complex electric-field profile from metalens numerical simulations, the calculated coupling efficiency accounts for angular power distribution, phase-front matching, and polarization-dependent vectorial overlap. The calculated coupling efficiency is then directly correlated with experimentally measured double-sideband receiver noise temperatures through comparison with a conventional elliptical Si lens measured under the same receiver configuration. The analysis establishes a quantitative relationship between metalens focusing efficiency, vectorial antenna coupling, and receiver noise temperature, providing guidance for optimizing metalens design and improving the overall performance of metalens-integrated THz heterodyne receivers.