The article presents a brief review of cooling systems that ensure various temperature levels (from 0.1 K to 230 K) for radio astronomical receivers of photonic and electronic (or optical and radio) devices. The features of various cooling levels and the requirements for the design of the cooling systems are considered in detail, as well as the approaches to designing interfaces for cooled receivers: vacuum, cryogenic, electrical, mechanical, optical, and other interfaces required for effective operation. The presented approaches to design are illustrated by a series of joint developments of the authors carried out over the past 45 years, including those produced over the past year.

Modern space-based telescopes operating in the terahertz spectral range require highly reflecting and cryogenically cooled optics ensuring extremely low noise. The idea of using high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O7-σ as a telescope's mirror coating for providing low dissipation and high reflectivity of the surface for the Subterahertz frequency band has been explored. We are presenting here some results of measurements of the reflection losses in YBa2Cu3O7-σ at cryogenic and room temperatures (4.2 — 300 K) in the frequency band 0.166 — 0.23 THz. High-accuracy measurements of the absolute value of reflectivity have been performed with the help of the resonance technique. The measured reflection losses in the given frequency band were below 1%. For the same frequency range, these values are well above the reflection losses in normal metals such as copper or aluminum, which are normally used to cover mirrors of telescopes. We therefore conclude that the use of high-Tc superconductors YBa2Cu3O7-σ as a highly reflecting coating for the THz telescopes mirror is not advisable.

The bolometric response of high-temperature thin-film YBCO superconducting detectors to an electromagnetic radiation with a frequency of 2.5 THz is measured for the first time. The minimum value of the noise-equivalent power of the detectors is 3.5 × 10⁻⁹ W/ $ \sqrt {Hz} $ . The feasibility of further increasing the sensitivity of the detectors is discussed.

: The article presents a brief review of cooling systems of various temperature levels (from 0.1 K to 230 K) for radio astronomical receivers of photonics and electronics. The features of various levels of cooling and the requirements for the design of the cooling system are considered in detail, as well as approaches to designing interfaces for cooled receivers: vacuum, cryogenic, electrical, mechanical, optical, and others required for the effective operation of the receiver,. The presented approaches to design are illustrated by a series of joint developments of the authors carried out over the past 45 years, including those produced last year.