No Arabic abstract
We perform experimental and theoretical study of the parallel-series arrays of Cold-Electron Bolometers (CEBs) integrated into a cross-slot antenna and composed with an immersion silicon lens. The purpose is to determine the absorption efficiency, the responsivity and the noise equivalent power (NEP) of the bolometers. The absorbed power has been found in two independent ways. The comparison of two approaches gives better understanding of the system and secures from misinterpretations. The first approach is fitting of the bolometer IV curves with solutions of heat-balance equations. The second approach is modeling of electromagnetic properties of the system, including an antenna, lens, optical can, band-pass filters and black body source. The difference between both methods does not exceed $30%$. The optimization of experimental setup is proposed to approach the photon limited detection mode.
We have measured a response to a black body radiation and noise of the cold-electron bolometers. The experimental results have been fitted by theoretical model with two heat-balance equations. The measured noise has been decomposed into several terms with the help of theory. It is demonstrated that the photon noise exceeds any other noise components, that allows us to conclude that the bolometers see the photon noise. Moreover, a peculiar shape of the noise dependence on the absorbed power originates completely from the photonic component according to the theory. In the additional experiment on heating of the cryostat plate together with the sample holder we have observed nearly independence of the noise on the electron temperature of the absorber, which has provided another proof of the presence of the photon noise in the first experiment.
We describe the optical characterisation of two silicon cold-electron bolometers each consisting of a small ($32 times 14~mathrm{mu m}$) island of degenerately doped silicon with superconducting aluminium contacts. Radiation is coupled into the silicon absorber with a twin-slot antenna designed to couple to 160-GHz radiation through a silicon lens.The first device has a highly doped silicon absorber, the second has a highly doped strained-silicon absorber.Using a novel method of cross-correlating the outputs from two parallel amplifiers, we measure noise-equivalent powers of $3.0 times 10^{-16}$ and $6.6 times 10^{-17}~mathrm{W,Hz^{-1/2}}$ for the control and strained device, respectively, when observing radiation from a 77-K source. In the case of the strained device, the noise-equivalent power is limited by the photon noise.
We describe optical characterisation of a Strained Silicon Cold Electron Bolometer (CEB), operating on a $350~mathrm{mK}$ stage, designed for absorption of millimetre-wave radiation. The silicon Cold Electron Bolometer utilises Schottky contacts between a superconductor and an n++ doped silicon island to detect changes in the temperature of the charge carriers in the silicon, due to variations in absorbed radiation. By using strained silicon as the absorber, we decrease the electron-phonon coupling in the device and increase the responsivity to incoming power. The strained silicon absorber is coupled to a planar aluminium twin-slot antenna designed to couple to $160~mathrm{GHz}$ and that serves as the superconducting contacts. From the measured optical responsivity and spectral response, we calculate a maximum optical efficiency of $50~%$ for radiation coupled into the device by the planar antenna and an overall noise equivalent power (NEP), referred to absorbed optical power, of $1.1 times 10^{-16}~mathrm{mbox{W Hz}^{-1/2}}$ when the detector is observing a $300~mathrm{K}$ source through a $4~mathrm{K}$ throughput limiting aperture. Even though this optical system is not optimised we measure a system noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) of $6~mathrm{mbox{mK Hz}^{-1/2}}$. We measure the noise of the device using a cross-correlation of time stream data measured simultaneously with two junction field-effect transistor (JFET) amplifiers, with a base correlated noise level of $300~mathrm{mbox{pV Hz}^{-1/2}}$ and find that the total noise is consistent with a combination of photon noise, current shot noise and electron-phonon thermal noise.
In the context of industrial engineering, cold-standby redundancies allocation strategy is usually adopted to improve the reliability of coherent systems. This paper investigates optimal allocation strategies of cold standbys for series and parallel systems comprised of dependent components with left/right tail weakly stochastic arrangement increasing lifetimes. For the case of heterogeneous and independent matched cold standbys, it is proved that better redundancies should be put in the nodes having weaker [better] components for series [parallel] systems. For the case of homogeneous and independent cold standbys, it is shown that more redundancies should be put in standby with weaker [better] components to enhance the reliability of series [parallel] systems. The results developed here generalize and extend those corresponding ones in the literature to the case of series and parallel systems with dependent components. Numerical examples are also presented to provide guidance for the practical use of our theoretical findings.
The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab searches for the charged flavor violating conversion of a muon into an electron in the Coulomb field of a nucleus. The detector consists of a straw tube tracker and a CSI crystal electromagnetic calorimeter, both housed in a superconducting solenoid. Both the front-end and the digital electronics, located inside the cryostat, will be operated in vacuum under a 1 T magnetic field, having to sustain the high flux of neutrons and ionizing particles coming from the muons stopping target. These harsh experimental conditions make the design of the calorimeter waveform digitizer quite challenging. All the selected commercial devices must be tested individually and qualified for radiation hardness and operation in high magnetic field. At the moment the expected particles flux and spectra at the digitizers location are not completely simulated and we are using initial rough estimates to select the components for the first prototype. We are gaining experience in the qualification procedures using the selected components but the choice will be frozen only when dose and neutron flux simulations will be completed. The experimental results of the first qualification campaign are presented.