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Florya, I. N., Korneeva, Y. P., Sidorova, M. V., Golikov, A. D., Gaiduchenko, I. A., Fedorov, G. E., et al. (2015). Energy relaxtation and hot spot formation in superconducting single photon detectors SSPDs. In EPJ Web of Conferences (Vol. 103, 10004 (1 to 2)).
Abstract: We have studied the mechanism of energy relaxation and resistive state formation after absorption of a single photon for different wavelengths and materials of single photon detectors. Our results are in good agreement with the hot spot model.
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Lusche, R., Semenov, A., Ilin, K., Siegel, M., Korneeva, Y., Trifonov, A., et al. (2014). Effect of the wire width on the intrinsic detection efficiency of superconducting-nanowire single-photon detectors. J. Appl. Phys., 116(4), 043906 (1 to 9).
Abstract: A thorough spectral study of the intrinsic single-photon detection efficiency in superconducting TaN and NbN nanowires with different widths has been performed. The experiment shows that the cut-off of the intrinsic detection efficiency at near-infrared wavelengths is most likely controlled by the local suppression of the barrier for vortex nucleation around the absorption site. Beyond the cut-off quasi-particle diffusion in combination with spontaneous, thermally activated vortex crossing explains the detection process. For both materials, the reciprocal cut-off wavelength scales linearly with the wire width where the scaling factor agrees with the hot-spot detection model.
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Semenov, A., Richter, H., Hübers, H. - W., Petrenko, D., Tretyakov, I., Ryabchun, S., et al. (2014). Optimization of the intermediate frequency bandwidth in the THz HEB mixers. In Proc. 25th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol. (54).
Abstract: We report on the studies of the intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth of quasi-optically coupled NbN hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers which are aimed at the optimization of the mixer performance at terahertz frequencies. Extension of the IF bandwidth due to the contribution of electron diffusion to the heat removal from NbN microbolometers has been already demonstrated for NbN HEBs at subterahertz frequencies. However, reducing the size of the microbolometer causes degradation of the noise temperature. Using in-situ multilayer manufacturing process we succeeded to improve the transparency of the contacts for electrons which go away from microbolometer to the metallic antenna. The improved transparency and hence coupling efficiency counterbalances the noise temperature degradation. HEB mixers were tested in a laboratory heterodyne receiver with a narrow-band cold filter which allowed us to eliminate direct detection. We used a local oscillator with a quantum cascade laser (QCL) at a frequency of 4.745 THz [1] which was developed for the H-Channel of the German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz frequencies (GREAT). Both the noise and gain bandwidth were measured in the IF range from 0.5 to 8 GHz using the hot-cold technique and preliminary calibrated IF analyzer with a tunable microwave filter. For optimized HEB geometry we found the noise bandwidth as large as 7 GHz. We compare our results with the conventional and the hot-spot mixer models and show that further extension of the IF bandwidth should be possible via improving the sharpness of the superconducting transition. The cross characterization of the HEB mixer was performed in the test bed of GREAT at the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie with the same QCL LO and delivered results which were consistent with the laboratory studies.
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Hajenius, M., Yang, Z. Q., Gao, J. R., Baselmans, J. J. A., Klapwijk, T. M., Voronov, B., et al. (2007). Optimized sensitivity of NbN hot electron bolometer mixers by annealing. IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond., 17(2), 399–402.
Abstract: We report that the heterodyne sensitivity of superconducting hot-electron bolometers (HEBs) increases by 25-30% after annealing at 85degC in high vacuum. The devices studied are twin-slot antenna coupled mixers with a small area NbN bridge of 1 mum times 0.15 mum, above which there is a SiO 2 passivation layer. The mixer noise temperature, gain, and resistance versus temperature curve of a HEB before and after annealing are compared and analysed. We show that the annealing reduces the intrinsic noise of the mixer by 37% and makes the superconducting transition of the bridge and the contacts sharper. We argue that the reduction ofthe noise is mainly due to the improvement of the transparency of the contact/film interface. The lowest receiver noise temperature of 700 K is measured at a local oscillator frequency of 1.63 THz and at a bath temperature of 4.2 K.
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Korneev, A., Kovalyuk, V., Ferrari, S., Kahl, O., Pernice, W., An, P., et al. (2017). Superconducting Single-Photon Detectors for Integrated Nanophotonics Circuits. In 16th ISEC (pp. 1–3).
Abstract: We present an overview of our recent achievements in integration of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors SNSPD with dielectric optical waveguides. We are able to produce complex nanophotonics integrated circuits containing optical elements and photon detector on single chip thus producing a compact integrated platform for quantum optics applications.
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