Transition-edge sensor: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 07:07, 17 September 2017

Revision as of 13:23, 30 October 2017

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===Thermometer===

The TES operates as a thermometer in the following manner: absorbed incident energy increases the resistance of the voltage-biased sensor within its transition region, and the integral of the resulting drop in current is proportional to the energy absorbed by the detector.<ref name=NIST2/> The output signal is proportional to the temperature change of the absorber, and thus for maximal sensitivity, a TES should have low heat capacity and a narrow transition. Important TES properties including not only heat capacity but also thermal conductance are strongly temperature dependent, so the choice of [[Superconductivity#Superconducting phase transition|transition temperature]] ''T''_c is critical to the device design. Furthermore, ''T''_c should be chosen to accommodate the available [[cryostat|cryogenic system]]. Tungsten has been a popular choice for elemental TESs as thin-film tungsten displays two phases, one with ''T''_c ~15  mK and the other with ''T''_c ~1–4  K, which can be combined to finely tune the overall device ''T''_c.<ref>A. Lita ''et al.'', "Tuning of tungsten thin film superconducting transition temperature for fabrication of photon number resolving detectors", ''IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.'', '''15''', 3528 (2005), {{doi|10.1109/TASC.2005.849033}}.</ref> Bilayer and multilayer TESs are another popular fabrication approach, where [[thin film]]s of different materials are combined to achieve the desired ''T''_c.<ref name=IrwinHilton />

===Thermal conductance===

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==See also==

{{commons category|Transition edge sensor}}

* [[Bolometer]]

* [[Cryogenic particle detectors]]

==References==