Superconductor Science and Technology, 2014 Volume 27, Number 2.
Andrey V Timofeev, Visa Vesterinen, Panu Helistö, Leif Grönberg, Juha Hassel, Arttu Luukanen.
VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, PO Box 1000, FI-02044 VTT, Finland and
Millilab, VTT, Tietotie 3, Espoo, FI-02044, Finland and
Current address: Asqella Ltd, Kutomotie 18, 00380 Helsinki, Finland.
Abstract
We introduce a microwave submillimeter-wave detector based on an integrated micromesh absorber and superconducting kinetic inductance thermometer on a through-wafer released sub-micron thick membrane. Equilibrium operation achieved by thermal isolation through the membrane geometry enables operation at elevated thermal bath temperatures of 5–10 K. The bolometer operates in a phonon-noise limited regime with a measured noise equivalent temperature difference of below 10 mK at 1 s integration time, which is sufficient for radiometric imaging in terrestrial systems. We also measured and analyzed the bolometer frequency response in the band 0.1–1.4 THz. Performance improvements through further dimensional scale-down and temperature dependency are discussed.