Operation of a Wideband Terahertz Superconducting Bolometer Responding to Quantum Cascade Laser Pulses

Abstract

We make use of a niobium film to produce a micrometric vacuum-bridge superconducting bolometer responding to THz frequency. The bolometer works anywhere in the temperature range 2–7 K, which can be easily reached in helium bath cryostats or closed-cycle cryocoolers. In this work the bolometer is mounted on a pulse tube refrigerator and operated to measure the equivalent noise power (NEP) and the response to fast (μs) terahertz pulses. The NEP above 100 Hz equals that measured in a liquid helium cryostat showing that potential drawbacks related to the use of a pulse tube refrigerator (like mechanical and thermal oscillations, electromagnetic interference, noise) are irrelevant. At low frequency, instead, the pulse tube expansion-compression cycles originate lines at 1 Hz and harmonics in the noise spectrum. The bolometer was illuminated with THz single pulses coming either from a Quantum Cascade Laser operating at liquid nitrogen temperature or from a frequency-multiplied electronic oscillator. The response of the bolometer to the single pulses show that the device can track signals with a rise time as fast as about 450 ns.