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Moshkova, M., Divochiy, A., Morozov, P., Vakhtomin, Y., Antipov, A., Zolotov, P., et al. (2019). High-performance superconducting photon-number-resolving detectors with 86% system efficiency at telecom range. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, 36(3), B20.
Abstract: The use of improved fabrication technology, highly disordered NbN thin films, and intertwined section topology makes it possible to create high-performance photon-number-resolving superconducting single-photon detectors (PNR SSPDs) that are comparable to conventional single-element SSPDs at the telecom range. The developed four-section PNR SSPD has simultaneously an 86±3% system detection efficiency, 35 cps dark count rate, ∼2 ns dead time, and maximum 90 ps jitter. An investigation of the PNR SSPD’s detection efficiency for multiphoton events shows good uniformity across sections. As a result, such a PNR SSPD is a good candidate for retrieving the photon statistics for light sources and quantum key distribution systems.
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Krause, S., Mityashkin, V., Antipov, S., Gol'tsman, G., Meledin, D., Desmaris, V., et al. (2016). Study of IF bandwidth of NbN hot electron bolometers on GaN buffer layer using a direct measurement method. In Proc. 27th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (pp. 30–32).
Abstract: In this paper, we present a reliable measurement method to study the influence of the GaN buffer layer on phonon-escape time in comparison with commonly used Si substrates and, in consequence, on the IF bandwidth of HEBs. One of the key aspects is to operate the HEB mixer at elevated bath temperatures close to the critical temperature of the NbN ultra-thin film, where contributions from electron-phonon processes and self-heating effects are relatively small, therefore IF roll-off will be governed by the phonon-escape.Two independent experiments were performed at GARD and MSPU on a similar experimental setup at frequencies of approximately 180 and 140 GHz, respectively, and have shown reproducible and consistent results. The entire IF chain was characterized by S-parameter measurements. We compared the measurement results of epitaxial NbN grown onto GaN buffer-layer with Tc of 12.5 K (4.5nm) with high quality polycrystalline NbN films on Si substrate with Tc of 10.5K (5nm) and observed a strong indication of an enhancement of phonon escape to the substrate by a factor of two for the NbN/GaN material combination.
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Shcherbatenko, M., Lobanov, Y., Kovalyuk, V., Korneev, A., & Gol'tsman, G. N. (2016). Photon counting detector as a mixer with picowatt local oscillator power requirement. In Proc. 27th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (110).
Abstract: At the current stage of the heterodyne receiver technology, great attention is paid to the development of detector arrays and matrices comprising many detectors on a single wafer. However, any traditional THz detector (such as SIS, HEB, or Schottky diode) requires quite a noticeable amount of Local Oscillator (LO) power which scales with the matrix size, and the total amount of the LO power needed is much greater than that available from compact and handy solid state sources. Substantial reduction of the LO power requirement may be obtained with a photon-counting detector used as a mixer. This approach, mentioned earlier in [1,2] provides a number of advantages. Thus, sensitivity of such a detector would be at the quantum limit (because of the photon-counting nature of the detector) and just a few LO photons for the mixing would be required leading to a possible breakthrough in the matrix receiver development. In addition, the receiver could be easily tuned from the heterodyne to the direct detection mode without any loss in its sensitivity with the latter limited only by the quantum efficiency of the detector used. We demonstrate such a technique with the use of the Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detector(SNSPD)[3] irradiated by both 1.5 μm LO with a tiny amount of power (from a few picowatts down to femtowatts) facing the detector, and the test signal with a power significantly less than that of the LO. The SNSPD was operated in the current mode and the bias current was slightly below its critical value. Irradiating the detector with either the LO or the signal source produced voltage pulses which are statistically evenly distributed and could be easily counted by a lab counter or oscilloscope. Irradiating the detector by the both lasers simultaneously produced pulses at the frequency f m which is the exact difference between the frequencies at which the two lasers operate. f m could be deduced form either counts statistics integrated over a sufficient time interval or with the help of an RF spectrum analyzer. In addition to the chip SNSPD with normal incidence coupling, we use the detectors with a travelling wave geometry design [4]. In this case a niobium nitride nanowire is placed on the top of a nanophotonic waveguide, thus increasing the efficient interaction length. Integrated device scheme allows us to measure the optical losses with high accuracy. Our approach is fully scalable and, along with a large number of devices integrated on a single chip can be adapted to the mid and far IR ranges. This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, contract no. 14.B25.31.0007 and by RFBR grant # 16-32-00465. 1. Leaf A. Jiang and Jane X. Luu, ―Heterodyne detection with a weak local oscillator, Applied Optics Vol. 47, Issue 10, pp. 1486-1503 (2008) 2. Matsuo H. ―Requirements on Photon Counting Detectors for Terahertz Interferometry J Low Temp Phys (2012) 167:840–845 3. A. Semenov, G. Gol'tsman, A. Korneev, “Quantum detection by current carrying superconducting film”, Physica C, 352, pp. 349-356 (2001) 4. O. Kahl, S. Ferrari, V. Kovalyuk, G. N. Goltsman, A. Korneev, and W. H. P. Pernice, ―Waveguide integrated superconducting single-photon detectors with high internal quantum efficiency at telecom wavelengths., Sci. Rep., vol. 5, p. 10941, (2015).
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Trifonov, A., Tong, C. - Y. E., Lobanov, Y., Kaurova, N., Blundell, R., & Goltsman, G. (2016). Gap frequency and photon absorption in a hot electron bolometer. In Proc. 27th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (121).
Abstract: The superconducting energy gap is a crucial parameter of a superconductor when used in mixing applications. In the case of the SIS mixer, the mixing process is efficient for frequencies below the energy gap, whereas, in the case of the HEB mixer, the mixing process is most efficient at frequencies above the gap, where photon absorption takes place more readily. We have investigated the photon absorption phenomenon around the gap frequency of HEB mixers based on NbN films deposited on silicon membranes. Apart from studying the pumped I-V curves of HEB devices, we have also probed them with microwave radiation, as previously described [1]. At frequencies far below the gap frequency, the pumped I-V curves show abrupt switching between the superconducting and resistive states. For the NbN HEB mixers we tested, which have critical temperatures of ~9 K, this is true for frequencies below about 400 GHz. As the pump frequency is increased beyond 400 GHz, the resistive state extends towards zero bias and at some point a small region of negative differential resistance appears close to zero bias. In this region, the microwave probe reveals that the device impedance is changing randomly with time. As the pump frequency is further increased, this random impedance change develops into relaxation oscillations, which can be observed by the demodulation of the reflected microwave probe. Initially, these oscillations take the form of several frequencies grouped together under an envelope. As we approach the gap frequency, the multiple frequency relaxation oscillations coalesce into a single frequency of a few MHz. The resultant square-wave nature of the oscillation is a clear indication that the device is in a bi-stable state, switching between the superconducting and normal state. Above the gap frequency, it is possible to obtain a pumped I-V curve with no negative differential resistance above a threshold pumping level. Below this pumping level, the device demonstrates bi-stability, and regular relaxation oscillation at a few MHz is observed as a function of pump power. The threshold pumping level is clearly related to the amount of power absorbed by the device and its phonon cooling. From the above experiment, we can derive the gap frequency of the NbN film, which is 585 GHz for our 6 μm thin silicon membrane-based device. We also confirm that the HEB mixer is not an efficient photon absorber for radiation below the gap frequency. 1. A. Trifonov et al., “Probing the stability of HEB mixers with microwave injection”, IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., vol. 25, no. 3, June 2015.
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Tretyakov, I., Maslennikov, S., Semenov, A., Safir, O., Finkel, M., Ryabchun, S., et al. (2015). Impact of operating conditions on noise and gain bandwidth of NbN HEB mixers. In Proc. 26th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (39).
Abstract: Hot-electron bolometer mixers (HEB’s) are the most promising devices as mixing element for terahertz spectroscopy and astronomy at frequencies beyond 1.4 THz. They have a low noise temperature and low demands on local oscillator (LO) power. 1,2 An important limitation is the IF bandwidth, of the order of a few GHz, and which in principle depends on energy relaxation due to electron- phonon processes and on diffusion-cooling. It has been proposed by Prober that a reduction in length of the HEB would lead to an increased bandwidth. 3 This appeared to be achieved by Tretyakov et al by measuring the gain bandwidth close to the critical temperature of the NbN. 2 Unfortunately, the noise bandwidth of similar devices operated at temperatures around 4.2 K appear not depend on the length. The fundamental problem to be addressed is the position-dependent superconducting state of the HEB- devices under operating conditions, which determines the conditions for the cooling of the hot quasiparticles. Some progress has been made by Barends et al in a semi-empirical model to describe the I,V curves under operating conditions at a bath temperature around 4.2 K. 4 In more recent work Vercruyssen et al have analyzed the I,V curve, without any LO-equivalent bias, of a model NSN system. 5 This work suggests that the most appropriate model for an HEB under operating conditions is that of a potential-well in the superconducting gap in the center of the NbN, analogous the bimodal superconducting state described by Vercruyssen et al. Hot quasiparticles in the well can not diffuse out and can only cool by electron-phonon processes, those with higher energies than the heights of the walls of the well can diffuse out. Using this working hypothesis we have carried out experiments on a sub-micrometer NbN bridge connected to a gold (Au) planar spiral antenna. An in situ process is used to deposit Au on NbN. The Au is removed in the center to define the uncovered NbN, which will act as the superconducting mixer itself. The antenna is deposited on the remaining Au layer on the NbN. The Au contacts suppress the energy gap of the NbN film located underneath the gold layer 7,8 . The measured resistive transition is shown in Fig.1. It clearly shows a T c of the bilayer at 6.2 K and the resistive transition of the NbN itself around 9 K. In addition we show the measured noise bandwidth (red squares) for different bath temperatures. Clearly the noise bandwidth increases strongly by increasing the bath temperature from 5 K to 8 K, up to 13 GHz. We interpret this pattern as evidence for improved out-diffusion of hot electrons due to normal banks and a shallow superconducting potential well compared to k B T. As expected the noise temperature in this regime is much bigger than when biased at 4.2 K. R EFERENCES 1 W. Zhang, P. Khosropanah, J. R. Gao, E. L. Kollberg, K. S. Yngvesson, T. Bansal, R. Barends, and T. M. Klapwijk Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 111113, (2010). 2 Ivan Tretyakov, Sergey Ryabchun, Matvey Finkel, Anna Maslennikova, Natalia Kaurova, Anastasia Lobastova, Boris Voronov, and Gregory Gol’tsman Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 033507 (2011). 3 D. E. Prober, Appl. Phys. Lett. 62, 2119 (1992). 4 R. Barends, M. Hajenius, J. R. Gao, and T. M. Klapwijk, Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 263506 (2005). 5 N. Vercruyssen, T. G. A. Verhagen, M. G. Flokstra, J. P. Pekola, and T. M. Klapwijk Physical Review B 85, 224503 (2012).
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Shurakov, A., Maslennikov, S., Tong, C. -yu E., & Gol’tsman, G. (2015). Performance of an HEB direct detector utilizing a microwave reflection readout scheme. In Proc. 26th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (36).
Abstract: We report the results of our study on the performance of a hot electron bolometric (HEB) direct detector, operated by a microwave pump. The HEB devices used in this work were made from NbN thin film deposited on high resistivity silicon with an in-situ fabrication process. The experimental setup employed is similar to the one described in [1]. The detector chips were glued to a silicon lens clamped to a copper holder mounted on the cold plate of a liquid helium cryostat. Thermal link between the lens and the holder was maintained by a thin indium shim. The HEBs were operated at a bath temperature of about 4.4 K. Conventional phonon pump, commonly realized by raising the bath temperature of the detector, was substituted by a microwave one. In this case, a CW microwave signal is injected to the device through a directional coupler connected directly to the detector holder. The power incident on the HEB device was typically 1-2 μW, and the pump frequency was in the range of 0.5-1.5 GHz. The signal sources were 2 black bodies held at temperatures of 295 K and 77 K. A chopper wheel placed in front of the cryostat window switched the input to the detector between the 2 sources. A modulation frequency of several kilohertz was chosen in order to reduce the effects of the HEB’s flicker noise. A cold mesh filter was used to define the input bandwidth of the detector. The reflected microwave signal from the HEB device was fed into a low noise amplifier, the output of which is connected to a room temperature Schottky microwave power detector. This Schottky detector, in conjunction with a lock-in amplifier, demodulated the input signal modulation from the copper wheel. As the input load was switched, the impedance of the HEB device at the microwave pump frequency also changed in response to the incident signal power variation. Therefore the reflected microwave power follows the incident signal modulation. The derived responsivity from this detection system nicely correlates with the HEB impedance. In order to provide a quantitative description of the impedance variation of the HEB device and the impact of a microwave pump, we have numerically solved the heat balance equations written for the NbN bridge and its surrounding thermal heat sink [2]. Our model also accounts for the impact of the operating frequency of the detector because of non-uniform absorption of low-frequency photons across the NbN bridge [3]. In our measurements we varied the signal source wavelength from 2 mm down to near infrared range, and hence we indirectly performed the impedance measurements at frequencies below, around and far beyond the superconducting gap. Preliminary results show good agreement between the experiment and theoretical prediction. Further measurements are still in progress. [1] A. Shurakov et al., “A Microwave Reflection Readout Scheme for Hot Electron Bolometric Direct Detector”, to appear in IEEE Trans. THz Sci. Tech., 2015. [2] S. Maslennikov, “RF heating efficiency of the terahertz superconducting hot-electron bolometer”, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.5276v5.pdf, 2014. [3] W. Miao et al., “Non-uniform absorption of terahertz radiation on superconducting hot electron bolometer microbridges”, Appl. Phys. Let., 104, 052605, 2014.
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Shcherbatenko, M., Lobanov, Y., Benderov, O., Shurakov, A., Ignatov, A., Titova, N., et al. (2015). Antenna-coupled 30 THz hot electron bolometer mixers. In Proc. 26th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (27).
Abstract: We report on design and characterization of a superconducting Hot Electron Bolometer Mixer integrated with a logarithmic spiral antenna for mid-IR range observations. The antenna parameters have been adjusted to achieve the ultimate performance at 10 µm (30 THz) range where O3, NH3, CO2, CH4, N2O,…. lines in the Earth’s atmosphere, in planetary atmospheres and in the interstellar space can be observed. The HEB mixer is made of a thin NbN film deposited onto a GaAs substrate. To couple the radiation we rely on the quasioptical approach: the device is glued to a semi-spherical germanium lens with diameter~ 3 mm. A wet cryostat equipped with a germanium window and narrow band-pass filter is used to characterize the antenna and estimate the mixer performance.
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Tovpeko, N. A., Trifonov, A. V., Semenov, A. V., Antipov, S. V., Kaurova, N. S., Titova, N. A., et al. (2019). Bandwidth performance of a THz normal metal TiN bolometer-mixer. In Proc. 30th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (pp. 102–103).
Abstract: We report on the bandwidth performance of the normal metal TiN bolometer-mixer on top of an Al 2 O 3 substrate, which is capable to operate in a wide range of bath temperatures from 77 K – 300 K. The choice of the combination TiN / Al 2 O 3 is related to an advanced heat transport between the film and the substrate in this pair and the sufficient temperature coefficient of resistance. The data were taken at 132.5 – 145.5 GHz with two BWOs as a signal and an LO source. Measurements were taken on TiN films of different thickness starting from 20 nm down to 5 nm coupled into a spiral Au antenna, which improves matching of incoming radiation with the thin TiN fim. Our experiments demonstrate effective heat coupling from a TiN thin film to an Al 2 O 3 substrate (111) boosting gain bandwidth (GB) of TiN bolometer up to 6 GHz for 5 nm thin film. Current results indicate weak temperature dependence of GB on the bath temperature of the TiN bolometer. Theoretical estimations of GB performance meet with experimental data for 5 nm thin TiN films.
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Tretyakov, I., Kaurova, N., Voronov, B. M., & Goltsman, G. N. (2018). About effect of the temperature operating conditions on the noise temperature and noise bandwidth of the terahertz range NbN hot-electron bolometers. In Proc. 29th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (113).
Abstract: Results of an experimental study of the noise temperature (Tn) and noise bandwidth (NBW) of the superconductor NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixer as a function of its temperature (Tb) and NbN bridge length are presented. It was determined that the NBW of the mixer is significantly wider at temperatures close to the critical ones (Tc) than are values measured at 4.2 K. The NBW of the mixer measured at the heterodyne frequency of 2.5 THz at temperature Tb close to Tc was ~13 GHz, as compared with 6 GHz at Tb = 4.2 K. This experiment clearly demonstrates the limitation of the thermal flow from the NbN bridge at Tb ≪ Tc for mixers manufactured by the in situ technique. This limitation is close in its nature to the Andreev reflection on the superconductor/metal boundary. In this case, the noise temperature of the studied mixer increased from 1100 to 3800 K.
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Trifonov, A., Tong, C. E., Lobanov, Y., Kaurova, N., Blundell, R., & Gol’tsman, G. (2015). An investigation of the DC and IF performance of silicon-membrane HEB mixer elements. In Proc. 26th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (40).
Abstract: We report on our initial development towards a 2x2 multi-pixel HEB waveguide mixer for operation at 1.4 THz. We have successfully fabricated devices comprising an NbN bridge integrated with antenna test structure using a silicon membrane as the supporting substrate. DC measurements of the test chips demonstrate critical current from 0.1 – 1mA depending on the size of device, with T c of around 10 K and ΔTc ~ 0.8 K.
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