Arttu Luukanen

Opportunities for mesoscopics in thermometry and refrigeration: Physics and applications

This review presents an overview of the thermal properties of mesoscopic structures. The discussion is based on the concept of electron energy distribution, and, in particular, on controlling and probing it. The temperature of an electron gas is determined by this distribution: refrigeration is equivalent to narrowing it, and thermometry is probing its convolution with a function characterizing the measuring device. Temperature exists, strictly speaking, only in quasiequilibrium in which the distribution follows the Fermi-Dirac form. Interesting nonequilibrium deviations can occur due to slow relaxation rates of the electrons, e.g., among themselves or with lattice phonons. Observation and applications of nonequilibrium phenomena are also discussed. The focus in this paper is at low temperatures, primarily below

A superconducting antenna-coupled hot-spot microbolometer

4\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}

Passive terahertz camera for standoff security screening

, where physical phenomena on mesoscopic scales and hybrid combinations of various types of materials, e.g., superconductors, normal metals, insulators, and doped semiconductors, open up a rich variety of device concepts. This review starts with an introduction to theoretical concepts and experimental results on thermal properties of mesoscopic structures. Then thermometry and refrigeration are examined with an emphasis on experiments. An immediate application of solid-state refrigeration and thermometry is in ultrasensitive radiation detection, which is discussed in depth. This review concludes with a summary of pertinent fabrication methods of presented devices.

A W -Band Polarization Converter and Isolator

We report the electrical properties of an antenna-coupled niobium vacuum-bridge bolometer, operated at a temperature of 4.2 K, in which the thermal isolation is maximized by the vacuum gap between the bridge and the underlying silicon substrate. The device is voltage-biased, which results in a formation of a normal state region in the middle of the bridge. The device shows a current responsivity of −1430 A/W and an amplifier limited electrical noise equivalent power of 1.4×10−14 W/Hz.

An Ultra-Low Noise Superconducting Antenna-Coupled Microbolometer With a Room-Temperature Read-Out

We describe the construction and performance of a passive, real-time terahertz camera based on a modular, 64-element linear array of cryogenic hotspot microbolometers. A reflective conical scanner sweeps out a 2 m x 4 m (vertical x horizontal) field of view (FOV) at a standoff range of 8 m. The focal plane array is cooled to 4 K in a closed cycle refrigerator, and the signals are detected on free-standing bridges of superconducting Nb or NbN at the feeds of broadband planar spiral antennas. The NETD of the focal-plane array, referred to the target plane and to a frame rate of 5 s(-1), is 1.25 K near the center of the array and 2 K overall.

Terahertz active direct detection imagers

A 95-GHz printed low-loss linear-to-circular polarizer is designed as a component of an active direct-detection millimeter-wave imaging system. The periodic printed grid structure presents different reactances to the TE and TM polarizations, resulting in equal amplitude and phase quadrature upon transmission through four parallel grids. The polarizer is measured in both a Gaussian beam system and a plane wave system, and demonstrates an axial ratio of 0.23 dB, polarization isolation of 38 dB, and transmission loss of 0.3 dB for normal incidence. The quarter-wave plate is characterized up to plusmn35deg off the optical axis, and exhibits an axial ratio better than 1 dB up to plusmn17deg off the optical axis.

Micromachined antenna-coupled uncooled microbolometers for terahertz imaging arrays

In this letter, we report the electrical and optical characteristics of a superconducting vacuum-bridge microbolometer with an electrical noise equivalent power of 26fW radicHz and an effective time constant of 380 ns, when operated at a bath temperature of 4K. We employ a novel room temperature external negative feedback readout architecture, that allows for noise matching to the device without bulky stepup transformers or cooled electronics. Both the detector and the readout lend themselves to be scaled to imaging arrays. The directly measured noise equivalent temperature difference over a 100-1000-GHz bandwidth is 125 mK in a 30-ms integration time

Passive hyperspectral terahertz imagery for security screening using a cryogenic microbolometer

We discuss several tradeoffs presented in the design of active imaging systems for the 100 to 1000 GHz frequency range, describe how we have addressed them in the design of a scanning, 95 GHz, bolometer-based imager for concealed weapons detection that is nearing completion, and describe how the system architecture can be modified to scale the operating frequency to the 650 GHz atmospheric window.

Ultrasensitive proximity Josephson sensor with kinetic inductance readout

In recent years our group has made significant progress toward the goal of a scalable, inexpensive terahertz imaging system for the detection of weapons concealed under clothing. By actively illuminating the subject under examination with only moderate source power (few milliwatts) the sensitivity constraints on the detector technology are significantly lessened compared to purely passive millimeter-wave detection. Last year, we demonstrated a fully planar, optically lithographed, uncooled terahertz imaging array with 120 pixels on a silicon substrate 75 mm in diameter. In this paper we present the recent progress on improving the responsivity of the individual microbolometers by a simple technique of surface micromachining to reduce the substrate thermal conduction. We describe the microbolometer array fabrication and present results on devices with a measured electrical responsivity of over 85 V/W (electrical NEP ~25 pW/rtHz), an improvement by a factor of two over current substrate-supported bolometers.

Active millimeter-wave video rate imaging with a staring 120-element microbolometer array

We present passive indoor imagery of human subjects in the 100 - 1000 GHz band. In order to obtain adequate sensitivity, a cryogenically cooled (4 K), broadband antenna-coupled, superconducting microbolometer with optical noise equivalent power NEP < 2 pW/rtHz was used as the sensor. Mechanical scanning of the collecting aperture, a 30 cm diameter spherical mirror, was used to slowly accumulate the images. While not yet practical for deployable real-time cameras, this system provides valuable phenomenological comparisons with similar imagery obtained with actively illuminated systems.