A Superconducting Resonator with a Hafnium Microbridge at Temperatures of 50–350 mK

Abstract

A high-quality superconducting resonator with a microbridge of hafnium film for use in a circuit for readout a terahertz-band imaging array with frequency division multiplexing is demonstrated experimentally. The variability of the impedance of the bridge at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, which is a key factor in the control of the quality of the resonator, is studied. The bridge, having a thickness of about 50 nm, a critical temperature T_C ≈ 380 mK, and a plan size of 2.5 × 2.5 μm, was connected as a load of a resonator made of niobium film with a thickness of about 100 nm (T_C ~ 9 K). It is shown that the bridge smoothly changes its impedance proportionally to the bias power in the entire temperature range. The effective thermal insulation of the bridge was measured in a dilution cryostat at temperatures of 50–300 mK. Thermal conductivity G of the bridge was calculated and found to be ~4 × 10^–13 W/K, which gives an estimate of the sensitivity of the structure in the bolometric mode NEP ≈ 8 × 10^–19 W/Hz^1/2 at a temperature of 150 mK.