The detection of 6 keV X-rays with Nb junctions

Author

Garé, P. ; Englehardt, R. ; Peacock, A. ; Twerenbold, D. ; Lumley, J. ; Somekh, R.E.

Author_Institution

Space Sci. Dept., Euro. Space Agency, ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands

Volume

25

Issue

2

fYear

1989

fDate

3/1/1989 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1351

Lastpage

1353

Abstract

Refractory metal Nb/Al/Al-oxide/Al/Nb junctions are shown to be sensitive to 6-keV X-rays over the temperature range from 2.8 to 1.4 K. For such junctions, which have an observed minimum ionizing energy of 12 MeV, a limiting energy resolution of 8 eV is predicted. Currently an energy resolution of 250 eV is observed at 1.4 K which is primarily dominated by system electronic noise. The Nb-based junctions are shown to be very stable with respect to thermal cycling while the nonequilibrium physics can be simply scaled from the theory of Sn junctions. It is concluded that on-chip arrays having a broad band pass and good energy resolution should be feasible to construct

Keywords

X-ray detection and measurement; aluminium; aluminium compounds; niobium; superconducting junction devices; superconductive tunnelling; type I superconductors; type II superconductors; 1.4 to 2.8 K; 6 keV; Nb-Al-AlO-Al-Nb; Nb-based junctions; X-ray detection; energy resolution; on-chip arrays; refractory metal junctions; superconductive tunnelling junctions; thermal cycling; Conductivity; Energy resolution; Kelvin; Niobium; Signal to noise ratio; Temperature sensors; Testing; Voltage; X-ray detection; X-ray detectors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.92546

Filename

92546