Superconducting hot-electron nanobolometer with microwave bias and readout

A. A. Kuzmin; M. Merker; S. V. Shitov; N. N. Abramov; A. B. Ermakov; M. Arndt; S. H. Wuensch; K. S. Ilin; A. V. Ustinov; M Siegel

arXiv · 1412.4502

Superconducting hot-electron nanobolometer with microwave bias and readout

A. A. Kuzmin·M. Merker·S. V. Shitov·N. N. Abramov·A. B. Ermakov·M. Arndt·S. H. Wuensch·K. S. Ilin·A. V. Ustinov·M Siegel

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Abstract

We propose a new detection technique based on radio-frequency (RF) bias and readout of an antenna-coupled superconducting nanobolometer. This approach is suitable for Frequency-Division-Multiplexing (FDM) readout of large arrays using broadband low-noise RF amplifier. We call this new detector RFTES. This feasibility study was made on demonstrator devices which are made in all-Nb technology and operate at 4.2 K. The studied RFTES devices consist of an antenna-coupled superconducting nanobolometer made of ultrathin niobium films with transition temperature Tc = 5.2 K. The 0.65-THz antenna and nanobolometer are embedded as a load into a GHz-range coplanar niobium resonator (Tc = 8.9 K, Q = 4000). To heat the superconducting Nb nanobolometer close to the Tc, the RF power at resonator frequency f = 5.8 GHz is applied via a transmission line which is weakly coupled (-11 dB) to the loaded resonator. The THz-antenna of RFTES was placed in the focus of a sapphire immersion lens inside a He4-cryostat equipped with an optical window and a semiconductor RF amplifier. We have demonstrated optical response of the RFTES to THz radiation. The demonstrator receiver system employing the RFTES device showed an optical Noise-Equivalent Power (NEP) 1e-14 W/sqrt(Hz) at 4.2 K.

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A. A. Kuzmin, M. Merker, S. V. Shitov, N. N. Abramov, A. B. Ermakov, M. Arndt, S. H. Wuensch, K. S. Ilin, A. V. Ustinov, M Siegel. 2014-12-15. Superconducting hot-electron nanobolometer with microwave bias and readout. https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.4502

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