Vasilev, D. D., Malevannaya, E. I., Moiseev, K. M., Zolotov, P. I., Antipov, A. V., Vakhtomin, Y. B., et al. (2020). Influence of deposited material energy on superconducting properties of the WSi films. In IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. (Vol. 781, 012013 (1 to 6)).
Abstract: WSi thin films have the advantages for creating SNSPDs with a large active area or array of detectors on a single substrate due to the amorphous structure. The superconducting properties of ultrathin WSi films substantially depends on their structure and thickness as the NbN films. Scientific groups investigating WSi films mainly focused only on changes of their thickness and the ratio of the components on the substrate at room temperature. This paper presents experiments to determine the effect of the bias potential on the substrate, the temperature of the substrate, and the peak power of pulsed magnetron sputtering, which is the equivalent of ionization, a tungsten target, on the surface resistance and superconducting properties of the WSi ultrathin films. The negative effect of the substrate temperature and the positive effect of the bias potential and the ionization coefficient (peak current) allow one to choose the best WSi films formation mode for SNSPD: substrate temperature 297 K, bias potential -60 V, and peak current 3.5 A.
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Zolotov, P., Divochiy, A., Vakhtomin, Y., Seleznev, V., Morozov, P., & Smirnov, K. (2018). Superconducting single-photon detectors made of ultra-thin VN films. In KnE Energy (Vol. 3, pp. 83–89).
Abstract: We optimized technology of thin VN films deposition in order to study VN-based superconducting single-photon detectors. Investigation of the main VN film parameters showed that this material has lower resistivity compared to commonly used NbN. Fabricated from obtained films devices showed 100% intrinsic detection efficiency at 900 nm, at the temperature of 1.7 K starting with the bias current of 0.7·I
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Baeva, E. M., Sidorova, M. V., Korneev, A. A., Smirnov, K. V., Divochy, A. V., Morozov, P. V., et al. (2018). Thermal properties of NbN single-photon detectors. Phys. Rev. Applied, 10(6), 064063 (1 to 8).
Abstract: We investigate thermal properties of a NbN single-photon detector capable of unit internal detection efficiency. Using an independent calibration of the coupling losses, we determine the absolute optical power absorbed by the NbN film and, via resistive superconductor thermometry, the temperature dependence of the thermal resistance Z(T) of the NbN film. In principle, this approach permits simultaneous measurement of the electron-phonon and phonon-escape contributions to the energy relaxation, which in our case is ambiguous because of the similar temperature dependencies. We analyze Z(T) with a two-temperature model and impose an upper bound on the ratio of electron and phonon heat capacities in NbN, which is surprisingly close to a recent theoretical lower bound for the same quantity in similar devices.
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Zhang, X., Lita, A. E., Smirnov, K., Liu, H. L., Zhu, D., Verma, V. B., et al. (2020). Strong suppression of the resistivity near the superconducting transition in narrow microbridges in external magnetic fields. Phys. Rev. B, 101(6), 060508 (1 to 6).
Abstract: We have investigated a series of superconducting bridges based on homogeneous amorphous WSi and MoSi films, with bridge widths w ranging from 2 to 1000μm and film thicknesses d∼4−6 and 100 nm. Upon decreasing the bridge widths below the respective Pearl lengths, we observe in all cases distinct changes in the characteristics of the resistive transitions to superconductivity. For each of the films, the resistivity curves R(B,T) separate at a well-defined and field-dependent temperature T∗(B) with decreasing the temperature, resulting in a dramatic suppression of the resistivity and a sharpening of the transitions with decreasing bridge width w. The associated excess conductivity in all the bridges scales as 1/w, which may suggest either the presence of a highly conducting region that is dominating the electric transport, or a change in the vortex dynamics in narrow enough bridges. We argue that this effect can only be observed in materials with sufficiently weak vortex pinning.
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Semenov, A. D., Hübers, H. - W., Gol’tsman, G. N., & Smirnov, K. (2002). Superconducting quantum detector for astronomy and X-ray spectroscopy. In J. Pekola, B. Ruggiero, & P. Silvestrini (Eds.), Proc. Int. Workshop on Supercond. Nano-Electronics Devices (pp. 201–210). Boston, MA: Springer.
Abstract: We propose the novel concept of ultra-sensitive energy-dispersive superconducting quantum detectors prospective for applications in astronomy and X-ray spectroscopy. Depending on the superconducting material and operation conditions, such detector may allow realizing background limited noise equivalent power 10−21 W Hz−1/2 in the terahertz range when exposed to 4-K background radiation or counting of 6-keV photon with almost 10—4 energy resolution. Planar layout and relatively simple technology favor integration of elementary detectors into a detector array.
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