Terahertz Spectroscopy of Gas Absorption Using the Superconducting Flux-Flow Oscillator as an Active Source and the Superconducting Integrated Receiver.

We report on the first implementation of a terahertz (THz) source based on a Josephson flux-flow oscillator (FFO) that radiates to open space. The excellent performance of this source and its maturity for practical applications has been demonstrated by the spectroscopy of gas absorption. To study the radiated power, we used a bolometric detection method and additionally calibrated the power by means of pumping the superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) junction, integrated on a single chip with the FFO.