Receivers development for the LLAMA Radio Telescope

The Large Latin American Millimeter Array (LLAMA) Collaboration is an Argentina-Brazil project to build and operate a 12-m sub-millimeter telescope near Salta, Argentina. LLAMA will operate in single dish and VLBI modes. LLAMA is interested in the Millimeter-wave laboratory (MWL) to develop a Band 1 (35-50 GHz) and a Band 2+3 (67–116 GHz) ALMA type receivers. Using our expertise in Q and W band (30-50 GHz and 75-115 GHZ) we are developing receiver systems for these frequency ranges. For Band 2+3 we propose a receiver based on a compact I-Q sub-harmonic mixer and MMIC amplifier, obtained from CalTech. Other components, such as horns and OMTs, will use technology developed in the MWL for ALMA Band 2+3. For Band 1 we plan to use commercial amplifiers from Low Noise Factory. Other components are available from our ALMA Band 1 effort. In parallel we keep our development program on low noise amplifier design and characterization in order to be able to provide this technology as well in the future.