Wide-Range Bolometer with RF Readout TES

Abstract: To improve both scalability and noise-filtering capability of a Transition-Edge Sensor (TES), a new concept of a thin-film detector is suggested, which is based on embedding a microbridge TES into a high-Q planar GHz range resonator weakly coupled to a 50 Ohm-readout transmission line. Such a TES element is designed as a hot-electron microbolometer coupled to a THz range antenna and as a load of the resonator at the same time. A weak THz signal coupled to the antenna heats the microbridge TES, thus reducing the quality factor of the resonator and leading to a power increment in the readout line. The power-to-power conversion gain, an essential figure of merit, is estimated to be above 10. To demonstrate the basic concept, we fabricated and tested a few submicron sized devices from Nb thin films for operation temperature about 5 K. The dc and rf characterization of the new device is made at a resonator frequency about 5.8 GHz. A low-noise HEMT amplifier is used in our TES experiments without the need for a SQUID readout. The optical sensitivity to blackbody radiation within the frequency band 600-700 GHz is measured as $\sim3\times 10^{-14} \textrm W/\sqrt{\textrm Hz}$ at Tc {\approx} 5 K at bath temperature ~ 1.5 K.