The Detection of Alpha Particles With Superconducting Tunnel Junctions

Distributed readout detectors using superconducting tunnel junctions

Superconducting tunnel junctions (STJs) are able to measure the energy of single photons in the range from near infrared to X-rays. They provide simultaneous information of the impact time and wavelength of an absorbed photon. The main difficulty of these detectors compared with conventional imaging detectors lies in their limited pixel number. Each STJ has to be connected independently and the...

THE PHONON SPECTRUM EMITTED BY SUPERCONDUCTING Sn TUNNEL JUNCTIONS

The phonon spectra emitted by superconducting tunnel junctions were directly analyzed with high resolution using tunable acceptor states of B in Si as a spectrometer. A consistent and detailed experimental picture of the different parts of the spectra under various injection conditions was obtained for the first time. Tunnel injection of electrons into superconductors leads to energetic quasipa...

Dynamics of nonequilibrium quasiparticles in narrow-gap superconducting tunnel junctions

A. G. Kozorezov,1 R. A. Hijmering,2 G. Brammertz,2 J. K. Wigmore,1 A. Peacock,2 D. Martin,2 P. Verhoeve,2 A. A. Golubov,3 and H. Rogalla3 1Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YB, United Kingdom 2Science Payloads and Advanced Concepts Office, SCI-A, ESTEC, European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands 3Department of Applied Physics, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217,...

Subgap biasing of superconducting tunnel junctions without a magnetic field

Superconducting tunnel junctions STJs have been successfully used as single-photon detectors but require the use of a magnetic field to operate. A recent paper has proposed the idea to use a circuit of three junctions in place of a single junction in order to achieve the necessary biasing without applying a magnetic field. The nonlinear interaction between the different junctions in the circuit...

Magnetic interaction between spatially extended superconducting tunnel junctions