Sensitivity to Cosmic Rays of Cold Electron Bolometers for Space Applications

An important phenomenon limiting the sensitivity of bolometric detectors for future space missions is the interaction with cosmic rays. We tested the sensitivity of Cold Electron Bolometers (CEBs) to ionizing radiation using gamma-rays from a radioactive source and X-rays from a X-ray tube. We describe the test setup and the results. As expected, due to the effective thermal insulation of the sensing element and its negligible volume, we find that CEBs are largely immune to this problem.Comment: LTD15; 6 pages, 6 figure

Cold-electron bolometers for future mm and sub-mm sky surveys

Future sky surveys in the mm/sub-mm range, like the forthcoming balloon-borne missions LSPE, OLIMPO, SPIDER etc., will need detectors insensitive to cosmic rays (CRs) and with a NEP of the order of $10^{-17} \div 10^{-18}\,$W/sqrt(Hz). The Cold-Electron Bolometers (CEBs) technology is promising, having the required properties, since the absorber volume is extremely small and the electron system of the absorber is thermally insulated from the phonon system. We have developed an experimental setup to test the optical performance and the CRs insensitivity of CEBs, with the target of integrating them in the OLIMPO and LSPE focal planes.Comment: 6 figure

Power Load and Temperature Dependence of Cold-Electron Bolometer Optical Response at 350 GHz

Cold-electron bolometers (CEBs) integrated with twin-slot antennas have been designed and fabricated. Optical response was measured at bath temperatures of 0.06 to 3 K using blackbody radiation source at temperatures of 3 to 15 K. The responsivity of 0.3 * 10(9) V/W was measured at 2.7-K blackbody temperature that is close to the temperature of the cosmic microwave background. Optical measurements indicate quasi-optical coupling efficiency of up to 60% at low phonon temperature and low signal level. Estimations for bolometer responsivity were made for practical range of bath temperatures and blackbody radiation temperatures. The estimated ultimate dark responsivity at 100-mK bath temperature can approach S-V = 10(10) V/W and reduces down to 1.1 * 10(8) V/W at 300 mK for a device with absorber volume of 5 * 10(-20) m(3)

Optical Response of a Cold-Electron Bolometer Array Integrated in a 345-GHz Cross-Slot Antenna

Two series/parallel arrays of ten cold-electron bolometers with superconductor–insulator–normal tunnel junctions were integrated in orthogonal ports of a cross-slot antenna. To increase the dynamic range of the receiver, all single bolometers in an array are connected in parallel for the microwave signal by capacitive coupling. To increase the output response, bolometers are connected in series for dc bias. With the measured voltage-to-temperature response of 8.8 μV/mK, absorber volume of 0.08 μm3, and output noise of about 10 nV/Hz1/2, we estimated the dark electrical noise equivalent power (NEP) as NEP = 6∗ 10−18 W/Hz1/2. The optical response down to NEP = 2∗ 10−17 W/Hz1/2 was measured using a hot/cold load as a radiation source and a sample temperature down to 100 mK. The fluctuation sensitivity to the radiation source temperature is 1.3 ∗ 10−4 K/Hz1/2. A dynamic range over 43 dB was measured using a backward-wave oscillator, a variable polarization grid attenuator, and cold filters/attenuators

Quantifying dynamics and interactions of individual spurious low-energy fluctuators in superconducting circuits

Understanding the nature and dynamics of material defects in superconducting circuits is of paramount importance for improving qubit coherence and parameter stability and much needed for implementing large-scale quantum computing. Here we present measurements on individual highly coherent environmental two-level systems (TLS). We trace the spectral diffusion of specific TLS and demonstrate that it originates from the TLS coupling to a small number of low energy incoherent fluctuators. From the analysis of these fluctuations, we access the relevant parameters of low energy fluctuators: Dipole moments, switching energies, and, more importantly, interaction energies. Our approach opens up the possibility of deducing the macroscopic observables in amorphous glassy media from direct measurements of local fluctuator dynamics at the microscopic level- A route towards substantiating commonly accepted, but so far phenomenological, models for the decohering environment

Fast Tunable High-Q-Factor Superconducting Microwave Resonators

We present fast tunable superconducting microwave resonators fabricated from planar NbN on a sapphire substrate. The 3 lambda/4 wavelength resonators are tuning fork shaped and tuned by passing a dc current that controls the kinetic inductance of the tuning fork prongs. The lambda/4 section from the open end operates as an integrated impedance converter that creates a nearly perfect short for microwave currents at the dc terminal coupling points, thus preventing microwave energy leakage through the dc lines. We measure an internal quality factor Q(int) > 10(5) over the entire tuning range. We demonstrate a tuning range of greater than 3% and tuning response times as short as 20 ns for the maximum achievable detuning. Because of the quasifractal design, the resonators are resilient to magnetic fields of up to 0.5 T

A Frequency Selective Surface based focal plane receiver for the OLIMPO balloon-borne telescope

We describe here a focal plane array of Cold-Electron Bolometer (CEB) detectors integrated in a Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) for the 350 GHz detection band of the OLIMPO balloon-borne telescope. In our architecture, the two terminal CEB has been integrated in the periodic unit cell of the FSS structure and is impedance matched to the embedding impedance seen by it and provides a resonant interaction with the incident sub-mm radiation. The detector array has been designed to operate in background noise limited condition for incident powers of 20 pW to 80 pW, making it possible to use the same pixel in both photometric and spectrometric configurations. We present high frequency and dc simulations of our system, together with fabrication details. The frequency response of the FSS array, optical response measurements with hot/cold load in front of optical window and with variable temperature black body source inside cryostat are presented. A comparison of the optical response to the CEB model and estimations of Noise Equivalent power (NEP) is also presented

Experimental study of a SINIS detector response time at 350 GHz signal frequency

Response time constant of a SINIS bolometer integrated in an annular ring antenna was measured at a bath temperature of 100 mK. Samples comprising superconducting aluminium electrodes and normal-metal Al/Fe strip connected to electrodes via tunnel junctions were fabricated on oxidized Si substrate using shadow evaporation. The bolometer was illuminated by a fast black-body radiation source through a band-pass filter centered at 350 GHz with a passband of 7 GHz. Radiation source is a thin NiCr film on sapphire substrate. For rectangular 10\uf7100 μs current pulse the radiation front edge was rather sharp due to low thermal capacitance of NiCr film and low thermal conductivity of substrate at temperatures in the range 1-4 K. The rise time of the response was ∼1-10 μs. This time presumably is limited by technical reasons: high dynamic resistance of series array of bolometers and capacitance of a long twisted pair wiring from SINIS bolometer to a room-Temperature amplifier

Reflection-enhanced gain in traveling-wave parametric amplifiers

The operating principle of traveling-wave parametric amplifiers is typically understood in terms of the standard coupled mode theory, which describes the evolution of forward propagating waves without any reflections, i.e., for perfect impedance matching. However, in practice, superconducting microwave amplifiers are unmatched nonlinear finite-length devices, where the reflecting waves undergo complex parametric processes, not described by the standard coupled mode theory. Here, we present an analytical solution for the TWPA gain, which includes the interaction of reflected waves. These reflections result in corrections to the well-known results of the standard coupled mode theory, which are obtained for both three-wave and four-wave mixing processes. Due to these reflections, the gain is enhanced and unwanted nonlinear phase modulations are suppressed. Predictions of the model are experimentally demonstrated on two types of unmatched TWPA, based on coplanar waveguides with a central wire consisting of (i) a high kinetic inductance superconductor, and (ii) an array of 2000 Josephson junctions

Frequency Selective Cold-Electron Bolometer Arrays

This work presents the integration of the Cold-Electron Bolometer (CEB) in Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) based arrays targeting balloon-borne telescope missions with high incident power requirements (typically tens of pW). FSS are planar frequency sensitive structures typically consisting of repeating pattern of a simple motif like square, circle, etc. This creates an array structure that is impedance matched to incident electromagnetic radiation. We investigated the integration of CEB detectors in these arrays and their response to incident millimeter/submillimeter radiation. The inherent frequency sensitive characteristics of the FSS allow these kinds of arrays to be designed for a wide range of frequency bands with coupling efficiencies approaching unity. A prototype 23 pixel CEB array at 345 GHz was developed for the OLIMPO telescope for performing photometric and spectroscopic observations of the Sunyaev– Zel'dovich effect from clusters of galaxies. Measurements from test pixel indicate a responsivity up to 2x10^8 V/W at low background powers. Spectral measurements indicate a bandwidth of about 20 GHz. Using room temperature commercial amplifiers, the Noise Equivalent Power (NEP) was estimated as 2x10^-16 W\sqrt{Hz} ,which is larger than the theoretically modelled value by a factor of 4-5. Prototype pixels which could possibly be used for the 145 GHz and 95 GHz channels on the SWIPE instrument in the LSPE balloon-borne telescope have also been developed and characterised. The spectral response of the 95 GHz pixels closely matches RF simulations with a bandwidth of about 8 GHz. An efficiency greater than 70% is estimated from analysis of measured data with responsivity approaching 1x10^{8} V/W at a background power of 60 pW