Development of Superconductor-Insulator-Normal Metal Tunnel Junction Detectors for Large Submillimeter Arrays

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

AST-0505379/Lubin, UC Santa Barbara The award is to design, build, and characterize a large format detector array featuring Superconductor-Insulator-Normal metal tunnel junctions as microbolometers. These devices can achieve background-limited sensitivity while operating at a temperature at or below 300 millikelvin. The devices can also be fabricated completely monolithically with no micromachining. This represents a great advantage over other technologies in that the simplicity of fabrication and design should make feasible the goal of kilo-pixel size arrays for use in the millimeter and submillimeter region of the spectrum.