Delacour, C., Claudon, J., Poizat, J. - P., Pannetier, B., Bouchiat, V., de Lamaestre, R. E., et al. (2007). Superconducting single photon detectors made by local oxidation with an atomic force microscope. Appl. Phys. Lett., 90(19), 191116 (1 t0 3).
Abstract: The authors present a fabrication technique of superconducting single photon detectors made by local oxidation of niobium nitride ultrathin films. Narrow superconducting meander lines are obtained by direct writing of insulating niobium oxynitride lines through the films using voltage-biased tip of an atomic force microscope. Due to the 30nm resolution of the lithographic technique, the filling factor of the meander line can be made substantially higher than detector of similar geometry made by electron beam lithography, thus leading to increased quantum efficiency. Single photon detection regime of these devices is demonstrated at 4.2K.
The authors thank J.-P. Maneval for stimulating discussions. This work has been partly supported by ACI Nanoscience from French Ministry of Research, D.G.A., by Grant No. 02.445.11.7434 of Russian Ministry of Education and Science, and by the European Commission under project “SINPHONIA,” Contract No. NMP4-CT-2005-16433.
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Koshelets, V. P., & Khudchenko, A. V. (2006). Analysis of spectral characteristics of a superconducting integrated receiver. J. Communications Technol. Electron., 51(5), 596–603.
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Shitov, S. V., & Vystavkin, A. N. (2006). A design analysis of imaging radiometer with antenna-coupled transition-edge sensors. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 559, 503–505.
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Torgashin, M. Y., Koshelets, V. P., Dmitriev, P. N., Ermakov, A. B., Filippenko, L. V., & Yagoubov, P. A. (2007). Superconducting integrated receivers based on Nb-AlN-NbN circuits. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., 17(2), 379–382.
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Jian Wei, David Olaya, Boris Karasik, Sergey Pereverzev, Andrei Sergeev, & Michael Gershenson. (2007). Ultra-sensitive hot-electron nanobolometers for terahertz astrophysics. ArXiv e-prints, 710.
Abstract: The background-limited spectral imaging of the early Universe requires spaceborne terahertz (THz) detectors with the sensitivity 2-3 orders of magnitude better than that of the state-of-the-art bolometers. To realize this sensitivity without sacrificing operating speed, novel detector designs should combine an ultrasmall heat capacity of a sensor with its unique thermal isolation. Quantum effects in thermal transport at nanoscale put strong limitations on the further improvement of traditional membrane-supported bolometers. Here we demonstrate an innovative approach by developing superconducting hot-electron nanobolometers in which the electrons are cooled only due to a weak electron-phonon interaction. At T<0.1K, the electron-phonon thermal conductance in these nanodevices becomes less than one percent of the quantum of thermal conductance. The hot-electron nanobolometers, sufficiently sensitive for registering single THz photons, are very promising for submillimeter astronomy and other applications based on quantum calorimetry and photon counting.
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