Fluctuations in the electron system of a superconductor exposed to a photon flux.

ABSTRACT: In a superconductor, in which electrons are paired, the density of unpaired electrons should become zero when approaching zero temperature. Therefore, radiation detectors based on breaking of pairs promise supreme sensitivity, which we demonstrate using an aluminium superconducting microwave resonator. Here we show that the resonator also enables the study of the response of the electron system of the superconductor to pair-breaking photons, microwave photons and varying temperatures. A large range in radiation power (at 1.54 THz) can be chosen by carefully filtering the radiation from a blackbody source. We identify two regimes. At high radiation power, fluctuations in the electron system caused by the random arrival rate of the photons are resolved, giving a straightforward measure of th

SUBMITTER: de Visser PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3925999 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature