Fabrication and characterization of niobium diffusion-cooled hot-electron bolometers on silicon nitride membranes

Author

Datesman, Aaron M. ; Schultz, Jonathan C. ; Lichtenberger, Arthur W. ; Golish, Dathon ; Walker, Christopher K. ; Kooi, Jacob

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Volume

15

Issue

2

fYear

2005

fDate

6/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

928

Lastpage

931

Abstract

We have successfully fabricated niobium diffusion-cooled hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers on membranes of silicon nitride less than one micron thick. This advance has allowed us to construct a 1 × 5 HEB receiver array intended for operation at 1.45 THz. This article provides an overview of the integration of the HEB array chip with silicon micromachined backshorts and feedhorns, discusses materials issues surrounding the device fabrication, reports resistance and I-V measurements, and compares HEBs fabricated on silicon nitride to similar devices on quartz substrates.

Keywords

bolometers; hot carriers; membranes; micromachining; niobium; silicon compounds; submillimetre wave mixers; submillimetre wave receivers; superconducting mixers; 1.45 THz; HEB array chip; Nb; diffusion cooling; focused-ion beam; hot-electron bolometer mixers; micromachining; niobium; quartz substrates; receiver array; silicon nitride membranes; Biomembranes; Bolometers; Circuits; Etching; Fabrication; Focusing; Gold; Niobium; Probes; Silicon; Focused-ion beam; HEB; membrane; mixer;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Applied Superconductivity, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1051-8223

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TASC.2005.850124

Filename

1439791