Superconducting microbolometers for time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy

摘要

We report the characterization of superconducting niobium microbolometers designed for time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy on nanosecond to millisecond timescales. Coupling of the incident signal is achieved via a planar antenna mounted on a hyperhemispherical silicon lens. We have integrated these detectors into a custom Fourier-transform spectrometer. The spectrometer optics are frequency independent over the spectral range 0.1-3 terahertz and thus the system bandwidth is set by the detector antenna. We have fabricated devices with two different antenna geometries, the double-dipole and the log spiral, and have characterized the spectral response of each. This detector will enable a variety of novel spectroscopy applications.