Highly sensitive and moderately cooled THz sensing: a challenge for Y-Ba-Cu-O superconducting thin films

Alain J. Kreisler; Annick F. Dégardin; Romain G. Ladret; Vishal S. Jagtap

doi:10.1117/12.2574041

20 September 2020 Highly sensitive and moderately cooled THz sensing: a challenge for Y-Ba-Cu-O superconducting thin films

Alain J. Kreisler, Annick F. Dégardin, Romain G. Ladret, Vishal S. Jagtap

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11541, Millimetre Wave and Terahertz Sensors and Technology XIII; 115410D (2020) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2574041
Event: SPIE Security + Defence, 2020, Online Only

Abstract

Hot electron bolometers (HEB) exploiting the properties of the high-T_C superconductor (HTS) Y-Ba-Cu-O, are offering a competitive alternative to THz Schottky mixers, which require moderate cooling (e.g., 60 to 80 K). This arises from the HTS HEBs expected wide bandwidth (tens of GHz), and low local oscillator (LO) power requirements: tens of microwatts, whereas several milliwatts are necessary to pump Schottky diode LOs efficiently. In fact, the large instantaneous bandwidth is related to the extremely short electron to phonon relaxation time (1 to 2 ps, typically) in YBa- Cu-O. It is much longer in low-T_C superconductors (LTS), e.g., about 20 ns in NbN. Besides, as required for LTS materials, it is mandatory to fabricate high quality and ultra thin HTS epitaxial films, so to process nano-bolometers exhibiting good mixing performances (i.e., double sideband noise temperature T_n and conversion gain G). Most of all, the challenge for Y-Ba-Cu-O remains the chemical reactivity and the aging effects, as reported previously. The main objectives of this paper are: i) to predict Y-Ba-Cu-O HEB heterodyne mixer performances, and ii) to exploit those predictions to simulate a stand-off passive detection system for, e.g., screening or security applications.

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Citation Download Citation

Alain J. Kreisler, Annick F. Dégardin, Romain G. Ladret, and Vishal S. Jagtap "Highly sensitive and moderately cooled THz sensing: a challenge for Y-Ba-Cu-O superconducting thin films", Proc. SPIE 11541, Millimetre Wave and Terahertz Sensors and Technology XIII, 115410D (20 September 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2574041

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