An Ultra-Low Noise Superconducting Antenna-Coupled Microbolometer With a Room-Temperature Read-Out

Published

August 1, 2006

Author(s)

A. Luukanen, Erich N. Grossman, Aaron J. Miller, P. Helisto, J. S. Penttila, H. Sipola, H. Seppa

Abstract

In this letter, we report the electrical and optical characteristics of a superconducting vacuum-bridge microbolometer with an electrical noise equivalent power of 26 fW/√Hz and an effective time constant of 380 ns, when operated at a bath temperature of 4K. We employ a novel room temeprature external negative feedback readout architecture, that allows for noise matching to the device without bulky stepup transformers or cooled electronics. Both the detector and the readout lend themselves to be scaled to imaging arrays. The directly measured noise equivalent temperature difference over a 100-1000-GHz bandwith is 125 mK in a 30-ms integration time.

Citation

IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters

Volume

16

Issue

8

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

bolometers, concealed weapons detection, super-conducting detectors, THz detectors, THz imaging

Citation

Luukanen, A. , Grossman, E. , Miller, A. , Helisto, P. , Penttila, J. , Sipola, H. and Seppa, H. (2006), An Ultra-Low Noise Superconducting Antenna-Coupled Microbolometer With a Room-Temperature Read-Out, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=32112 (Accessed October 22, 2025)