Superconductor-insulator-superconductor quasiparticle junctions as microwave photon detectors
- 15 March 1980
- journal article
- research article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Applied Physics Letters
- Vol. 36 (6), 480-482
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.91514
Abstract
The strong nonlinearity of the quasiparticle tunneling current in superconductor‐insulator‐superconductor junctions near the full‐gap voltage 2Δ/e can be used for direct detection of microwave signals. Measurements at 36 GHz yielded a current responsivity of 3500 A/W, which is within a factor of 2 of the quantum‐limited value e/∇ω. The measured NEP of 2.6±0.8×10−16 W/,Hz1/2 is the lowest value reported to date and can probably be improved significantly. The experimental results are compared with both the standard classical analysis and photon‐assisted tunneling theory.Keywords
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