학술논문

X-Ray Induced Secondary Particle Counting With Thin NbTiN Nanowire Superconducting Detector
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond. Applied Superconductivity, IEEE Transactions on. 31(4):1-5 Jun, 2021
Subject
Fields, Waves and Electromagnetics
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Photonics
Detectors
Substrates
Absorption
X-ray imaging
X-ray detection
Timing
Nanowire single photon detector
niobium titanium nitride
superconducting thin film
Language
ISSN
1051-8223
1558-2515
2378-7074
Abstract
We characterized the performance of abiased superconducting nanowire to detect X-ray photons. The device, made of a 10 nm thin NbTiN film and fabricated on a dielectric substrate ($SiO_{2}$, Nb$_{3}$O$_{5}$) detected 1000 times larger signal than anticipated from direct X-ray absorption. We attributed this effect to X-ray induced generation of secondary particles in the substrate. The enhancement corresponds to an increase in the flux by the factor of 3.6, relative to a state-of-the-art commercial X-ray silicon drift detector. The detector exhibited 8.25 ns temporal recovery time and 82 ps timing resolution, measured using optical photons. Our results emphasize the importance of the substrate in superconducting X-ray single photon detectors.