Characterization of Silicon-Membrane TES Microcalorimeters for Large-Format X-ray Spectrometers with Integrated Microwave SQUID Readout

Published

January 16, 2026

Author(s)

Avirup Roy, Robinjeet Singh, Joel Weber, William Doriese, Johnathon Gard, Mark Keller, John Mates, Kelsey Morgan, Galen O'Neil, Nathan Ortiz, Daniel Swetz, Daniel Schmidt, Joel Ullom, Evan Jahrman, Thomas Allison, Sasawat Jamnuch, John Vinson, Charles Titus, Cherno Jaye, Daniel Fischer

Abstract

We present the electrothermal characterization of transition-edge sensor (TES) detectors suspended on Si membranes fabricated using a silicon-on-insulator wafer. The use of an all-silicon fabrication platform, in contrast to the more commonly used silicon nitride membranes, is compatible with monolithic fabrication of integrated TES and SQUID circuits. The all-silicon architecture additionally allows the efficient use of focal plane area; the readout circuitry may be positioned out of the focal plane by bending a thinned portion of the chip. Compatibility with integrated fabrication and the efficient use of focal plane area provide a path to an efficient soft X-ray spectrometer. This work is motivated by our goal to develop a 10 000-pixel TES spectrometer to overcome critical measurement limitations in catalysis research. The characterization of fragile, carbon-based intermediates via techniques, such as resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS), is often precluded by the slow, high-flux nature of existing technologies. The new instrument will allow for fast RIXS measurements to be made without causing sample damage. We verify the detector models and measure the energy resolution using a pulsed optical laser, demonstrating the viability of this approach for the final instrument to be deployed at the National Synchrotron Light Source II.

Citation

IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Volume

36

Issue

6

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2026.3655165

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Keywords

Catalysis, microwave multiplexing, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS), silicon-on-insulator (SOI), soft X-ray microcalorimetry, transition-edge sensor (TES), X-ray.

Citation

Roy, A. , Singh, R. , Weber, J. , Doriese, W. , Gard, J. , Keller, M. , Mates, J. , Morgan, K. , O'Neil, G. , Ortiz, N. , Swetz, D. , Schmidt, D. , Ullom, J. , Jahrman, E. , Allison, T. , Jamnuch, S. , Vinson, J. , Titus, C. , Jaye, C. and Fischer, D. (2026), Characterization of Silicon-Membrane TES Microcalorimeters for Large-Format X-ray Spectrometers with Integrated Microwave SQUID Readout, IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2026.3655165, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=960432 (Accessed July 3, 2026)

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