A 3mm multipixel SIS receiver for IRAM 30-m Pico Veleta Telescope

A 3mm band focal plane array heterodyne receiver is being developed for Nasmyth focus of the IRAM 30-m Pico Veleta Radio Telescope located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, south of Spain. This receiver will comprise 25 dual linear polarization pixels operating across the 80-116GHz nominal band. Design efforts are being made to enlarge the band to cover the full 3mm atmospheric transmission window available at Pico Veleta, i.e. 72-116GHz. The instrument will be coupled to the Pico Veleta Telescope via a purely reflective low-loss optical system that includes a de-rotator. The receiver will be based on 5 x 5 cryogenically cooled dual-linear polarized feed horns cascaded with Ortho Mode Transducers (OMT) and side band separating SIS mixers, a technology which offers state-of-the-art performances for millimeter and sub-millimeter receivers.