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Tretyakov I, Ryabchun S, Finkel M, Maslennikov S, Maslennikova A, Kaurova N, et al. Ultrawide noise bandwidth of NbN hot-electron bolometer mixers with in situ gold contacts. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.. 2011;21(3):620–3.
Abstract: We report a noise bandwidth of 7 GHz in the new generation of NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers that are being developed for the space observatory Millimetron. The HEB receiver driven by a 2.5-THz local oscillator offered a noise temperature of 600 K in a 50-MHz final detection bandwidth. As the filter center frequency was swept this value remained nearly constant up to the cutoff frequency of the cryogenic amplifier at 7 GHz. We believe that such a low value of the noise temperature is due to reduced radio frequency (RF) loss at the interface between the superconducting film and the gold contacts. We have also performed gain bandwidth measurements at the superconducting transition on HEB mixers with various lengths and found them to be in excellent agreement with the results of the analytical and numerical models developed for the HEB mixer with both diffusion and phonon cooling of hot electrons.
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Sobolewski R, Verevkin A, Gol'tsman GN, Lipatov A, Wilsher K. Ultrafast superconducting single-photon optical detectors and their applications. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.. 2003;13(2):1151–7.
Abstract: We present a new class of ultrafast single-photon detectors for counting both visible and infrared photons. The detection mechanism is based on photon-induced hotspot formation, which forces the supercurrent redistribution and leads to the appearance of a transient resistive barrier across an ultrathin, submicrometer-width, superconducting stripe. The devices were fabricated from 3.5-nm- and 10-nm-thick NbN films, patterned into <200-nm-wide stripes in the 4 /spl times/ 4-/spl mu/m/sup 2/ or 10 /spl times/ 10-/spl mu/m/sup 2/ meander-type geometry, and operated at 4.2 K, well below the NbN critical temperature (T/sub c/=10-11 K). Continuous-wave and pulsed-laser optical sources in the 400-nm-to 3500-nm-wavelength range were used to determine the detector performance in the photon-counting mode. Experimental quantum efficiency was found to exponentially depend on the photon wavelength, and for our best, 3.5-nm-thick, 100-/spl mu/m/sup 2/-area devices varied from >10% for 405-nm radiation to 3.5% for 1550-nm photons. The detector response time and jitter were /spl sim/100 ps and 35 ps, respectively, and were acquisition system limited. The dark counts were below 0.01 per second at optimal biasing. In terms of the counting rate, jitter, and dark counts, the NbN single-photon detectors significantly outperform their semiconductor counterparts. Already-identified applications for our devices range from noncontact testing of semiconductor CMOS VLSI circuits to free-space quantum cryptography and communications.
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Nebosis RS, Heusinger MA, Schatz W, Renk KF, Gol’tsman GN, Karasik BS, et al. Ultrafast photoresponse of a structured YBa2Cu3O7-δ thin film to ultrashort FIR laser pulses. IEEE Trans Appl Supercond. 1993;3(1):2160–2.
Abstract: The authors have investigated the photoinduced voltage response of a current-carrying structured YBa2Cu3O7-δ thin film to ultrashort far-infrared (FIR) laser pulses in the frequency range from 0.7 THz to 7 THz. The detector has shown an almost constant sensitivity of 1 mV/W and a noise equivalent power of less than 5*10/sup -7/ W/ square root Hz. The temperature dependence of the decay time of the detector signal was studied for temperatures around the transition temperature of the film ( approximately 80 K). For a detector temperature where dR/dT had its maximum, the authors observed bolometric signals with decay times of about 2 ns, and for lower temperatures they observed nonbolometric signals with decay times of approximately 120 ps; the duration of the nonbolometric signals was limited by the time resolution of the electronic registration equipment.
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Smirnov K, Moshkova M, Antipov A, Morozov P, Vakhtomin Y. The cascade switching of the photon number resolving superconducting single-photon detectors. IEEE Trans Appl Supercond. 2021;31(2):1–4.
Abstract: In this article, present the first detailed study of cascade switching in superconducting photon number resolving detectors. The detectors were made in the form of four parallel nanowires, coupled with the single-mode optical fiber and mounted into a closed-cycle refrigerator with a temperature of 2.1 K. We found out the value of additional false pulses (N cas.sw. ) appearing due to cascade switching and showed that it is possible to set up the detector bias current that corresponds to a high level of the detection efficiency and a low level of N cas.sw. simultaneously. We reached the detection efficiency of 60% and N cas.sw. = 0.3%.
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Kawamura J, Tong C-YE, Blundell R, Papa DC, Hunter TR, Patt F, et al. Terahertz-frequency waveguide NbN hot-electron bolometer mixer. IEEE Trans Appl Supercond. 2001;11(1):952–4.
Abstract: We have developed a low-noise waveguide heterodyne receiver for operation near 1 THz using phonon-cooled NbN hot-electron bolometers. The mixer elements are submicron-sized microbridges of 4 nm-thick NbN film fabricated on a quartz substrate. Operating at a bath temperature of 4.2 K, the double-sideband receiver noise temperature is 760 K at 1.02 THz and 1100 K at 1.26 THz. The local oscillator is provided by solid-state sources, and power measured at the source is less than 1 /spl mu/W. The intermediate frequency bandwidth exceeds 2 GHz. The receiver was used to make the first ground-based heterodyne detection of a celestial spectroscopic line above 1 THz.
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Gao JR, Hajenius M, Yang ZQ, Baselmans JJA, Khosropanah P, Barends R, et al. Terahertz superconducting hot electron bolometer heterodyne receivers. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.. 2007;17(2):252–8.
Abstract: We highlight the progress on NbN hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixers achieved through fruitful collaboration between SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. This includes the best receiver noise temperatures of 700 K at 1.63 THz using a twin-slot antenna mixer and 1050 K at 2.84 THz using a spiral antenna coupled HEB mixer. The mixers are based on thin NbN films on Si and fabricated with a new contact-process and-structure. By reducing their areas HEB mixers have shown an LO power requirement as low as 30 nW. Those small HEB mixers have demonstrated equivalent sensitivity as those with large areas provided the direct detection effect due to broadband radiation is removed. To manifest that a HEB based heterodyne receiver can in practice be used at arbitrary frequencies above 2 THz, we demonstrate a 2.8 THz receiver using a THz quantum cascade laser (QCL) as local oscillator.
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Ryabchun S, Tong C-YE, Paine S, Lobanov Y, Blundell R, Goltsman G. Temperature resolution of an HEB receiver at 810 GHz. IEEE Trans Appl Supercond. 2009;19(3):293–6.
Abstract: We present the results of direct measurements of the temperature resolution of an HEB receiver operating at 810 GHz, in both continuum and spectroscopic modes. In the continuum mode, the input of the receiver was switched between black bodies with different physical temperatures. With a system noise temperature of around 1100 K, the receiver was able to resolve loads which differed in temperature by about 1 K over an integration time of 5 seconds. This resolution is significantly worse than the value of 0.07 K given by the radiometer equation. In the spectroscopic mode, a gas cell filled with carbonyl sulphide (OCS) gas was used and the emission line at 813.3537060 GHz was measured using the receiver in conjunction with a digital spectrometer. From the observed spectra, we determined that the measurement uncertainty of the equivalent emission temperature was 2.8 K for an integration time of 0.25 seconds and a spectral resolution of 12 MHz, compared to a 1.4 K temperature resolution given by the radiometer equation. This relative improvement is due to the fact that at short integration times the contribution from 1/f noise and drift are less dominant. In both modes, the temperature resolution was improved by about 40% with the use of a feedback loop which adjusted the level of an injected microwave radiation to maintain a constant operating current of the HEB mixer. This stabilization scheme has proved to be very effective to keep the temperature resolution of the HEB receiver to close to the theoretical value given by the radiometer equation.
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Yamashita T, Miki S, Qiu W, Fujiwara M, Sasaki M, Wang Z. Temperature dependent performances of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors in an ultralow-temperature region. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.. 2010;21(3):336–9.
Abstract: We report on the performance of a fiber-coupled superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD) from 4 K down to the ultralow temperature of 16 mK for a 1550 nm wave length. The system detection efficiency (DE) increased with de creasing the temperature and reached the considerably high value of 15% with a dark count rate less than 100 cps below 1.5 K, even without an optical cavity structure. We also observed saturation of the system DE in its bias current dependency at 16 mK, which indicates that the device DE of our SNSPD nearly reached intrinsic DE despite the device having a large active area of 20 μm × 20 μm. The dark count was finite even at 16 mK and the black body radiation becomes its dominant origin in the low temperatures for fiber-coupled devices.
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Yang JKW, Kerman AJ, Dauler EA, Cord B, Anant V, Molnar RJ, et al. Suppressed critical current in superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors with high fill-factors. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.. 2009;19(3):318–22.
Abstract: In this work we present a new fabrication process that enabled the fabrication of superconducting nanowire single photon detectors SNSPD with fill-factors as high as 88% with gaps between nanowires as small as 12 nm. This fabrication process combined high-resolution electron-beam lithography with photolithography. Although this work was motivated by the potential of increased detection efficiency with higher fill-factor devices, test results showed an unexpected systematic suppression in device critical currents with increasing fill-factor.
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Lobanov Y, Shcherbatenko M, Semenov A, Kovalyuk V, Kahl O, Ferrari S, et al. Superconducting nanowire single photon detector for coherent detection of weak signals. IEEE Trans Appl Supercond. 2017;27(4):1–5.
Abstract: Traditional photon detectors are operated in the direct detection mode, counting incident photons with a known quantum efficiency. Here, we have investigated a superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) operated as a photon counting mixer at telecommunication wavelength around 1.5 μm. This regime of operation combines excellent sensitivity of a photon counting detector with excellent spectral resolution given by the heterodyne technique. Advantageously, we have found that low local oscillator (LO) power of the order of hundreds of femtowatts to a few picowatts is sufficient for clear observation of the incident test signal with the sensitivity approaching the quantum limit. With further optimization, the required LO power could be significantly reduced, which is promising for many practical applications, such as the development of receiver matrices or recording ultralow signals at a level of less-than-one-photon per second. In addition to a traditional NbN-based SNSPD operated with normal incidence coupling, we also use detectors with a travelling wave geometry, where a NbN nanowire is placed on the top of a Si 3 N 4 nanophotonic waveguide. This approach is fully scalable and a large number of devices could be integrated on a single chip.
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