Project of a Large Superconductor Detector Involving Directed Diffusion of Hot Electrons and Microcalorimeter
- Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University, Vorob'evy gory, Moscow, 119899 (Russian Federation)
In recent years, radically new detectors for soft x rays and gamma rays were developed on the basis of superconducting tunnel junctions. These detectors made it possible to attain a very high resolution, but their largest area is overly small for employing them in nuclear spectroscopy. This study is devoted to the problem of designing a superconductor detector whose dimensions are sufficiently large for detecting gamma rays and which is suitable for applications in various fields of science. The detector consists of three units: an absorber, a hot-electron calorimeter, and a tunnel-junction (normal metal-insulator-superconductor) thermometer. The absorber has a multilayer structure consisting of thin superconductor layers arranged in the order of variation of the superconductor energy gap. This structure specifies the direction of hot-electron diffusion. Since quasiparticles diffuse in a specific direction, the diffusion time becomes shorter than that in the case of conventional diffusion. It is necessary that this time be shorter than the time of electron-phonon interaction. Calculations of the diffusion time for the particular structure in question and data from the literature on electron-phonon interaction show that the operating area of the detector can be about 3 to 4 mm{sup 2} and that its thickness can be about 1 mm. These dimensions can be considerably increased in the case of especially pure superconductors.
- OSTI ID:
- 20692922
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Atomic Nuclei, Vol. 68, Issue 12; Other Information: Translated from Yadernaya Fizika, ISSN 0044-0027, 68, 2096-2100 (No. 12, 2005); DOI: 10.1134/1.2149082; (c) 2005 Pleiades Publishing, Inc; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); TN:; ISSN 1063-7788
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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