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Chinese Physics B

Temperature and current sensitivity extraction of optical superconducting transition-edge sensors based on a two-fluid model*

Yue Geng, Peizhan Li, Jiaqiang Zhong, Wen Zhang, Zheng Wang, Wei Miao, Yuan Ren, Sheng‐Cai Shi

Published Jul 7, 2021• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optical superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) has been widely used in quantum information, biological imaging, and fluorescence microscopy owing to its high quantum efficiency, low dark count, and photon number resolving capability. The temperature sensitivity (αI ) and current sensitivity (βI ) are important parameters for optical TESs, which are generally extracted from the complex impedance. Here we present a method to extract αI and βI based on a two-fluid model and compare the calculated current–voltage curves, pulse response, and theoretical energy resolution with the measured ones. This method shows qualitative agreement that is suitable for further optimization of optical TESs.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/ac11ce

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Optical superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) has been widely used in quantum information, biological imaging, and fluorescence microscopy owing to its high quantum efficiency, low dark count, and photon number resolving capability. The temperature sensitivity (αI ) and current sensitivity (βI ) are important parameters for optical TESs, which are generally extracted from the complex impedance. Here we present a method to extract αI and βI based on a two-fluid model and compare the calculated current–voltage curves, pulse response, and theoretical energy resolution with the measured ones. This method shows qualitative agreement that is suitable for further optimization of optical TESs.
Transition-edge sensors (TESs) are very versatile superconducting devices used to detect radiation from gamma-rays to visible and submillimeter. The intrinsic capability to measure the energy of the absorbed photons with very high energy resolution and the related possibility to resolve the number of incident photons distinguish photon-number resolving (PNR) devices from any other photon detectors. PNR detectors are fundamental for the measurement of the photon-number distribution of singlephoton emitters and for the progress of quantum information technology and quantum metrology. By reducing the active area of TESs for visible-NIR light from typical values of 10-10m2toward 10-12m2and by increasing the TES operating temperature, we should be able to combine the high energy resolution permitted by very low heat capacity with fast response time. To support the future design and development of this new type of detector, in this work we compare experimental data with circuit simulation results based on the two-fluid theory.
Superconducting transition-edge sensors (TESs), working as single-photon detectors with high quantum efficiency, low dark count rate, and photon number resolving capability, have been successfully used in quantum information experiments as well as astronomical transient object observations. Aiming to achieve high count rate, we are developing titanium-based superconducting TES single-photon detectors with a critical temperature of ~300 mK. Ti-based TESs with active area from 10 × 10 μm to 40 × 40 μm are first fabricated on silicon substrate coated with SiOx. The fabricated TES devices show a thermal conductance scaling with the active area and an effective time constant of ~4 μs from pulsed laser diode illumination. In order to get high quantum efficiency, we further design and fabricate a 1550-nm optical cavity based on dielectric mirror and antireflection layer, and study its absorption with an IR spectrometer. Ti TES devices on the dielectric mirror are then fabricated and the superconducting transition is measured.
Abstract Optical transition-edge sensors (TESs) have shown an energy resolution for resolving the number of incident photons at the telecommunication wavelength. However, a higher energy resolution is required for biological imaging and microscopic spectroscopy. In this study, we tested an Au/Ti (10/20 nm) bilayer TES that showed a high energy resolution. The high energy resolution was achieved by lowering the critical temperature T c to 115 mK, and the resultant energy resolution was 67 meV full width at half maximum (FWHM) at 0.8 eV. When T c was reduced to 115 mK, the theoretical resolution would scale up to 30 meV FWHM, considering that the typical energy resolution of optical TESs was 150 meV and T c was 300 mK. To investigate the difference between the theoretical expectation (30 meV) and the measured value (67 meV), we measured the complex impedance and current noise of the TES. We found excess Johnson noise in the TES; the excess Johnson noise term M was 1.5 at a bias point where the resistance was 10% of the normal resistance. For reference, the above mentioned TES was compared with a TES showing typical energy resolution (156 meV FWHM). We also discussed factors that improved or inhibited the energy resolution.
Transition-edge sensors (TESs) have shown the capability of both energy resolution and resolving photon numbers. In this work, we present the fabrication and characterization of high detection efficiency Ti optical TESs with the critical temperatureTc= 213 mK and the photon-number resolving capability at telecommunication wavelength 1550 nm. The Ti superconducting film is prepared by a DC magnetron sputtering technique. An optical cavity comprised of 5-layers antireflection and 15-layers high-reflection Ta2O5/SiO2is enclosed with the Ti film by an ion beam assisted deposition method to improve detection efficiency, which brings the absorption of 99.74%. The energy resolution for the Ti TES with sensitive area 20 μm × 20 μm is 0.45 eV and the detection efficiency is 97% ± 1%.
A transition edge sensor (TES) is one of superconducting photon detectors, which has a photon number resolving ability in light pulses. The TES device is a kind of calorimeters operated at an extremely low temperature, and the energy of the photons is measured as a resistance change in a superconducting transition region of the TES. The advantages of the TESs are an excellent energy resolution and a high quantum efficiency. However a response speed is limited due to slow thermal recovery time. To overcome this, we fabricated new TES devices which are based on a titanium superconductor. The critical temperature of our titanium films is around 410 mK, which greatly improves the thermal recovery time. The observed decay time constant of response signals to the light pulses is around several hundreds of ns, that make it possible to operate the devices at a counting rate over 1 MHz. The photon number resolving power is 0.35 eV(FWHM) for a 5 μm size device even at the high operating temperature. The system quantum efficiency is 65 % by embedding the TES films in an optical structure with a high reflection dielectric mirror and an anti-reflection coatings fabricated by an ion beam assisted sputtering method. These features are very promising for high speed photon number resolving applications in the quantum information field.
Complex impedance measurements are widely used to characterize superconducting transition edge sensors (TESs) in bolometers and microcalorimeters. Typically, models are fit to impedance data to find parameters which pertain to the performance of these detectors. After the parameters are determined, the models are then used to compute the response and noise of these devices. In this paper, we present general relationships between the measured impedance, the thermal response to power in the TES, and noise. We describe a method for measuring αIand βIof the superconducting phase transition, which does not require model fitting. We find bolometer response is determined from the impedance provided that the absorber is strongly coupled to the TES electron system. We also demonstrate how to calculate upper and lower limits on the noise directly from the impedance data without modeling. Additionally, the relations can be used to check the validity of the models and to understand what information can and cannot be obtained from measurements of impedance, response, and noise.