Measurement of properties of a smooth-walled spline-profile feed horn around 840 GHz

For astrophysical applications at submillimeter wavelengths, efficient coupling of the feed horn pattern in the focal plane to the radiation pattern of the telescope is paramount. To date, at 840 GHz with high band width, corrugated feed horns have been used with very good results. The goal of developing instruments for KOSMA above 1 THz where state-of-the-art heterodyne systems are still governed by receiver noise rather than by radiative background, requires fabrication of corrugated structures of the order of λ/3 or less. This is non-trivial, and here we present the performance of a smooth-walled spline-profile feed horn, which is considerably easier to manufacture compared to a corrugated feed horn. The performance is assessed via radiation patterns in H, E and 45° D-Plane in co- and cross-polarization.