TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jian Wei
AU  - David Olaya
AU  - Boris Karasik
AU  - Sergey Pereverzev
AU  - Andrei Sergeev
AU  - Michael Gershenson
PY  - 2007
DA  - 2007//
TI  - Ultra-sensitive hot-electron nanobolometers for terahertz astrophysics
JO  - ArXiv e-prints
VL  - 710
KW  - cond-mat.other
KW  - astro-ph
KW  - cond-mat.mes-hall
AB  - 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.
UR  - http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.5474v1
N1  - arXiv:0710.5474v1; 19 pages, 3 color figures
ID  - JianWei_etal2007
ER  -