Feasibility of the high Tc superconducting bolometer

Abstract

A design analysis is given for a bolometric infrared detector that uses the resistive transition of a high-temperature superconductor as the temperature sensing element, and liquid nitrogen (LN) as the coolant. It is shown that for highly oriented c-axis films, the measured low-frequency noise causes little or no degradation of the performance. With the incoming radiation chopped at 10 Hz, noise equivalent powers (NEP) in the range (1-20)×10-12 W Hz-1/2 should be achievable. These values compare favorably with the NEP of other detectors operating at or above LN temperatures for wavelengths greater than 20 μm.