No Arabic abstract
We present proof-of-operation for a new method of electron thermometry using microwave impedance of a hafnium micro-absorber. The new method leads to an ultimate THz-range detector suitable for microwave readout and frequency division multiplexing. The sensing part of the device is a hot-electron-gas absorber responding to the incident radiation by variation of its impedance measured at probing frequency about 1.5 GHz. The absorber is a microbridge made from hafnium (Tc = 375 mK, RN = 30 Ohm) sized 2.5 um by 2.5 um by 50 nm and integrated with a planar 600-700 GHz antenna placed near the open end of a quarter-wave CPW resonator (Q-factor about 10^4). All elements of the circuit, except the microbridge, are made from 100-nm thick Nb, including the resonator, which is weakly coupled to a throughput line. The device was tested at 50-350 mK smoothly responding with its transmission coefficient S21 to applied microwave power at the resonance frequency. We have found that the power absorbed by the bridge fits to the model of hot electron gas, P=k(Te^n-Tph^n) (n = 5...6). The idle NEP down to about 10^-18 W/Hz^(-1/2) and the corresponding cross-over temperature for photon background about 5 K are estimated from the measured data. The saturation power of about 1 pW and possibility of moderate gain are anticipated for a practicable device operating at temperature 200 mK. Since the optimum readout frequency is found exactly at the resonance, the detector is insensitive to most phase instabilities at the probing frequency.
Optical readout of GEM based devices by means of high granularity and low noise CMOS sensors allows to obtain very interesting tracking performance. Space resolution of the order of tens of $mu$m were measured on the GEM plane along with an energy resolution of 20%$div$30%. The main limitation of CMOS sensors is represented by their poor information about time structure of the event. In this paper, the use of a concurrent light readout by means of a suitable photomultiplier and the acquisition of the electric signal induced on the GEM electrode are exploited to provide the necessary timing informations. The analysis of the PMT waveform allows a 3D reconstruction of each single clusters with a resolution on z of 100 $mu$m. Moreover, from the PMT signals it is possible to obtain a fast reconstruction of the energy released within the detector with a resolution of the order of 25% even in the tens of keV range useful, for example, for triggering purpose.
A microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) is a cutting-edge superconducting detector, and its principle is based on a superconducting resonator circuit. The superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of the MKID is an important parameter because various MKID characterization parameters depend on it. In this paper, we propose a method to measure the Tc of the MKID by changing the applied power of the readout microwaves. A small fraction of the readout power is deposited in the MKID, and the number of quasiparticles in the MKID increases with this power. Furthermore, the quasiparticle lifetime decreases with the number of quasiparticles. Therefore, we can measure the relation between the quasiparticle lifetime and the detector response by rapidly varying the readout power. From this relation, we estimate the intrinsic quasiparticle lifetime. This lifetime is theoretically modeled by Tc, the physical temperature of the MKID device, and other known parameters. We obtain Tc by comparing the measured lifetime with that acquired using the theoretical model. Using an MKID fabricated with aluminum, we demonstrate this method at a 0.3 K operation. The results are consistent with those obtained by Tc measured by monitoring the transmittance of the readout microwaves with the variation in the device temperature. The method proposed in this paper is applicable to other types, such as a hybrid-type MKID.
The next generation of Far-infrared and X-ray space observatories will require detector arrays with thousands of transition edge sensor (TES) pixel. It is extremely important to have a tool that is able to characterize all the pixels and that can give a clear picture of the performance of the devices. In particular, we refer to those aspects that can affect the global energy resolution of the array: logarithmic resistance sensitivity with respect to temperature and current ($alpha$ and $beta$ parameters, respectively), uniformity of the TESs and the correct understanding of the detector thermal model. Complex impedance measurement of a TES is the only technique that can give all this information at once, but it has been established only for a single pixel under DC bias. We have developed a complex impedance measurement method for TESs that are AC biased since we are using a MHz frequency domain multiplexing (FDM) system to readout an array. We perform a complete set of AC impedance measurements for different X-ray TES microcalorimeters based on superconducting TiAu bilayers with or without normal metal Au bar structures. We discuss the statistical analysis of the residual between impedance data and fitting model to determine the proper calorimeter thermal model for our detectors. Extracted parameters are used to improve our understanding of the differences and capabilities among the detectors and additionally the quality of the array. Moreover, we use the results to compare the calculated noise spectra with the measured data.
Resonant inductive coupling is commonly seen as an undesired fundamental phenomenon emergent in densely packed resonant structures, such as nuclear magnetic resonance phased array detectors. The need to mitigate coupling imposes rigid constraints on the detector design, impeding performance and limiting the scope of magnetic resonance experiments. Here we introduce a high impedance detector design, which can cloak itself from electrodynamic interactions with neighboring elements. We verify experimentally that the high impedance detectors do not suffer from signal-to-noise degradation mechanisms observed with traditional low impedance elements. Using this new-found robustness, we demonstrate an adaptive wearable detector array for magnetic resonance imaging of the hand. The unique properties of the detector glove reveal new pathways to study the biomechanics of soft tissues, and exemplify the enabling potential of high-impedance detectors for a wide range of demanding applications that are not well suited to traditional coil designs.
For the upgrade of the inner tracker of the BESIII spectrometer, planned for 2018, a lightweight tracker based on an innovative Cylindrical Gas Electron Multiplier (CGEM) detector is now under development. The analogue readout of the CGEM enables the use of a charge centroid algorithm to improve the spatial resolution to better than 130 um while loosening the pitch strip to 650 um, which allows to reduce the total number of channels to about 10 000. The channels are readout by 160 dedicated integrated 64-channel front-end ASICs, providing a time and charge measurement and featuring a fully-digital output. The energy measurement is extracted either from the time-over-threshold (ToT) or the 10-bit digitisation of the peak amplitude of the signal. The time of the event is generated by quad-buffered low-power TDCs, allowing for rates in excess of 60 kHz per channel. The TDCs are based on analogue interpolation techniques and produce a time stamp (or two, if working in ToT mode) of the event with a time resolution better than 50 ps. The front-end noise, based on a CSA and CR-RC2 shapers, dominate the channel intrinsic time jitter, which is less than 5 ns r.m.s.. The time information of the hit can be used to reconstruct the track path, operating the detector as a small TPC and hence improving the position resolution when the distribution of the cloud, due to large incident angle or magnetic field, is very broad. Event data is collected by an off-detector motherboard, where each GEM-ROC readout card handles 4 ASIC carrier PCBs (512 channels). Configuration upload and data readout between the off-detector electronics and the VME-based data collector cards are managed by bi-directional fibre optical links.