Photon-noise-limited cold-electron bolometer based on strong electron self-cooling for high-performance cosmology missions
Journal article, 2019

Bolometers for balloon and space missions have seen extensive development because of their capacity to test primordial conditions of the Universe. The major improvements consist in lowering the operating temperature to reach higher sensitivities. Here we show that an array of 192 cold-electron bolometers (CEB) demonstrates photon-noise-limited operation at the cryostat temperature of 310 mK due to effective self-cooling of the absorber. The direct electron cooling of nanoabsorber placed between normal metal - insulator - superconductor junctions has considerably higher efficiency than indirect cooling through massive suspended platform, that requires overcoming a weak electron-phonon conductance. The electron temperature reached 120 mK without a power load, and 225 mK with a 60 pW power load with self-noise of a single bolometer below 3⋅10-18WHz-1∕2 at a 0.01 pW power load. This bolometer works at electron temperature less than phonon temperature, thus being a good candidate for future space missions without the use of dilution refrigerators.

Author

Leonid Kuzmin

Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Quantum Device Physics

A. L. Pankratov

Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University

Russian Academy of Sciences

A. V. Gordeeva

Russian Academy of Sciences

Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University

V. O. Zbrozhek

Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University

V. A. Shamporov

Russian Academy of Sciences

Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University

L. S. Revin

Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University

Russian Academy of Sciences

A. V. Blagodatkin

Russian Academy of Sciences

Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University

S. Masi

Sapienza University of Rome

P. de Bernardis

Sapienza University of Rome

Communications Physics

23993650 (eISSN)

Vol. 2 1 104

Subject Categories

Energy Engineering

Other Physics Topics

Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

DOI

10.1038/s42005-019-0206-9

More information

Latest update

1/3/2024 9