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1111111111111111111inmumu (12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 8,571,615 B2 Hays (45) Date of Patent: Oct. 29, 2013 (54) SUPERCONDUCTING METALLIC GLASS OTHER PUBLICATIONS TRANSITION-EDGE-SENSORS Bauer et al., "Homogene mechanische Spannungen in (75) Inventor: Charles C. Hays, Pasadena, CA (US) aufgedampften Schichten", Zeitschrift Fur Physik, 220, 293-304 (1969) (73) Assignee: California Institute of Technology, V. Sushkov, "TES microcalorimeter readout via transformer", Nuc. Pasadena, CA (US) Instr. and Methods in Physics Research a vol. 530, 234-250 (2004). J.H. Mooij, "Electrical Conduction in Concentrated Disordered (*) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this Transition Metal Alloys", Phys. Status Solidi A 17, 521-530 (1973). patent is extended or adjusted under 35 Ullom et al., "Suppression of excess noise in Transition-Edge Sen- U.S.C. 154(b) by 106 days. sors using magnetic field and geometry", Nuc. Instr. and Meth. A 520, 333-335 (2004). (21) Appl. No.: 13/230,653 Aslamazov et al., "The Influence of Fluctuation Pairing of Electrons on the Conductivity of Normal Metal", Phys. Letters 26A, No. 6, (22) Filed: Sep.12, 2011 238-239 (1968). Chervenak et al., "Fabrication of transition edge sensor X-ray (65) Prior Publication Data microcalorimeters for Constallation-X", Nuc. Instr. and Meth. A 520, 460-462 (2004). US 2012/0065072 Al Mar. 15, 2012 Howson et al., "The Electron Transport Properties of Metallic Glasses", Physics Reports (Review Section of Physics Letters) 170, Related U.S. Application Data No. 5, 265-324 (1988). Lindeman et al., "Characterization and reduction of noise in Mo/Au (60) Provisional application No. 61/381,895, filed on Sep transition edge sensors", Nuc. Instr. and Meth. A 520, 348-350 10, 2010. (2004). U. Mizutani, "Electronic Structure of Metallic Glasses", Prog. Mat. (51) Int. Cl. Sci. 28, 97-228 (1983). HOIL 39100 (2006.01) (Continued) (52) U.S. Cl. USPC .......................................................... 505/191 Primary Examiner Colleen Dunn (58) Field of Classification Search (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm Gates & Cooper LLP USPC .............. 505/191, 330; 257/661-663; 427/62 See application file for complete search history. (57) ABSTRACT (56) References Cited A superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor (MGTES) and a method for fabricating the MGTES are pro- U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS vided. A single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy is deposited on a substrate. The single-layer supercon- 7,767,976 B2 * 8/2010 Allen et al . ................... 250/393 ducting amorphous metal alloy is an absorberforthe MGTES 7,989,775 B2 * 8/2011 Allen et al . ................... 250/393 and is electrically connected to a circuit configured for read- 2004/0011960 Al * 1/2004 Morooka et al............ 250/336.1 2007/0296953 Al* 12/2007 Allen eta] . ..................... 356/28 out and biasing to sense electromagnetic radiation. 2009/0278046 Al* 11/2009 Allen et al . ................ 250/336.1 2011/0026614 Al * 2/2011 Allen et al . ................... 375/259 23 Claims, 6 Drawing Sheets Si-N Support 305 . Absorber/MGTES 302 Superconducting Leads/bonpads on Si-N Support 1~ 306 \ SQUID V 308 310 US 8,571,615 B2 Page 2 (56) References Cited Lindeman et al., Performance of compact TES arrays with integrated high-fill-fraction X-ray6 absorbers, Nuc. Instr. and Meth. A 520, OTHER PUBLICATIONS 411-413, 2004. Karkut et al., "Upper critical fields and superconducting transition Naugle et al., "Thickness Dependence of the Resistive Transition of temperatures of some zirconium-base amorphous transition-metal Superconducting Films", Phys. Lett. 28A, No. 2, 110-111 (1968). alloys", Phys. Rev. B, vol. 28, No. 3, 1396-1418, 1983. D.G. Naugle, "Electron Transport in Amorphous Metals", J. Phys. Lee et al., "Voltage-biased superconducting transition-edge and Chem. of Solids 45, No. 4, 367-388 (1984). bolometer with strong electrothermal feedback operated at 370 mK", Naugle et al., "Size Dependence of the Superconducting Transition Appl. Opt., vol. 37, No. 16, 3391-3397, 1998. Temperature", Phys. Lett. vol. 28A, No. 9, 611-612, 1969. Johnson et al., "Effect of thermodynamic fluctuations on the shape Samwer et al., "Amorphous superconducting ZrxCul-x: Electronic and width of the resistive transition in threedimentional amorphous properties, stability, and low-energy excitations", Phys. Rev. B vol. superconducting alloys", Phys. Rev. B, vol. 13, No. 11, 4827-4833, 26, No. 1, 107-123, 1982. 1976. K.D. Irwin, "An application of electrothermal feedback for high Johnson et al., "Paraconductivity of three-dimensional amorphous resolution cryogenic particle detection", Appl. Phys. Lett. 66(15), superconductors-evidence for a short-wavelength cutoff in the fluc- 1998-2000, 1995. tuation spectrum", Phys. Rev. B, vol. 17, No. 7, 2884-2891, 1978. Howson et al., "Localisation and interaction effects in the tempera- Altounian et al., "Superconductivity and spin fluctuations in M-Zr ture and magnetic field dependence of the resistivity of metallic metallic glasses", Phys. Rev. B, vol. 27, No. 7, 4149-4156, 1983. glasses", J. Phys., F: Met. Phys. 16, 989-1004, 1986. Mizutani et al., "Electronic properties of Cu-Ti metallic glasses", J. Tenhover et al., "Superconductivity and the electronic structure ofZr- Phys. F: Met. Phys. 13, 2127-2136, 1983. and Hf-based metallic glasses", Phys. Rev. B, vol. 27, No. 3, 1610- 1618, 1982. * cited by examiner U.S. Patent Oct. 29, 2013 Sheet 1 of 6 US 8,571,615 B2 m ~ ti Q ` O u. I N L ~ C .~ uN Cl) ~ 1 Q L_o 4 Q Q _o LiL CL LO U o ILI z U.S. Patent Oct. 29, 2013 Sheet 2 of 6 US 8,571,615 B2 q N C[ W U O U.S. Patent Oct. 29, 2013 Sheet 3 of 6 US 8,571,615 B2 Si-N Support 305 - Absorber/MGTES 302 FIG. 3 Superconducting Leads/bond pads on Si-N Support 306 SQUID V 308 310 FIG. 4 1*--4,55 4.57 458 ~ T V 60 ta ki Theory 20 W 1 ; T Tt a U.S. Patent Oct. 29, 2013 Sheet 4 of 6 US 8,571,615 B2 100 10 CL 0.1 50 100 150 200 250 300 Temperature (K) FIG. 5 U.S. Patent Oct. 29, 2013 Sheet 5 of 6 US 8,571,615 B2 FIG. 6 U.S. Patent Oct. 29, 2013 Sheet 6 of 6 US 8,571,615 B2 FIG. 7 ;e ~111 %.6 FIG. 8 US 8,571,615 B2 2 SUPERCONDUCTING METALLIC GLASS (SOA) TES arrays, do not exhibit the performance require- TRANSITION-EDGE-SENSORS ments of the BLISS instrument. The BLISS instrument requires detectors with the following performance metrics: 1) CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED fast response time ti (T< 100 mS); 2) high pixel density arrays APPLICATIONS 5 (at least 103 pixels); 3) TES films must exhibit stable T,<100 mK; 4) must perform over a broad wavelength range 35 This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. Section mm-433 mm; 5) low detector noise equivalent power (NEP) I I9(e) of the following co-pending and commonly-assigned of the order NEP<1 x10—'9 W/-VHZ; and 6) low 1 /f noise level U.S. provisional patent application(s), which is/are incorpo- at low frequencies, f, below 10 Hz. rated by reference herein: 10 TES-based microcalorimeter arrays are being developed Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/381,895, filed on Sep. for the mission listed above, as well as the NASA Beyond 10, 2010, by Charles C. Hays and Donald G. Naugle, entitled Einstein Program Constellation-X Observatory (Con-X, for "Superconducting Metallic Glass Transition-Edge-Sensors,". measurements of x-ray spectra). SOA TES devices detect radiation by precisely measuring the temperature rise associ- STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY 15 ated with the absorption of a photon, which raises the TES SPONSORED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT temperature. The temperature increase is detected by a super- conducting thermistor, which is voltage-biased 10-20% into The invention described herein was made in the perfor- the superconducting transition curve at T —T,. The supercon- mance of work under NASA Contract Number NASI-1407 ducting thermistors in SOA TES devices are typically based and is subject to the provisions of Public Law 96-517 (35 20 on: 1) elemental superconducting films; e.g., Titanium (Ti, USC 202) in which the Contractor has elected to retain title. T,,565 mK) or Iridium (Ir, T,-130 mK); and 2) proximity effect elemental metallic bilayer design; e.g., Mo/Au. FIGS. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION lA and 1B illustrate an ordinary bilayer Mo/Au (Molybde- num/Gold) TES (FIG. 1A) and TES with stripes (FIG. 113) 1. Field of the Invention 25 (140 microns on a side, stripes spaced every 15 µm) of the The present invention relates generally to imaging, and in prior art. In the single-layer elemental TES designs, the super- particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture conducting transition temperature T c cannot be controlled, for fabricating and using a metallic glass transition-edge- and is well above the desired operating temperature (-50 mK) sensor (MGTES) device. for space applications. The bilayer TES device functions as a 2. Description of the Related Art 30 single superconducting element via the proximity effect, and (Note: This application references a number of different the superconducting transition temperature, T c, is controlled publications as indicated throughout the specification by ref- by the thickness of the superconductive film element. How- erence numbers enclosed in brackets, e.g., [x]. A list of these ever, this TES device architecture has inherent problems, different publications ordered according to these reference which are manifest in fabrication difficulties, control of the numbers can be found below in the section entitled "Refer- 35 superconducting transition temperature, T c, and an excess ences." Each of these publications is incorporated by refer- noise equivalent power spectrum.