Characterization of room temperature metal microbolometers near the metal-insulator transition regime for scanning thermal microscopy

Metal microbolometers, used in scanning thermal microscopy, were microfabricated from <20?nm titanium thin films on SiO2/Si3N4/SiO2 cantilevers. These thin films are near the metal-insulator transition regime such that as the film thickness decreases—the resistance increases and the current-voltage characteristics cross over from sublinear to...

IF impedance and mixer gain of NbN hot electron bolometers

The intermediate frequency (IF) characteristics, the frequency dependent IF impedance, and the mixer conversion gain of a small area hot electron bolometer (HEB) have been measured and modeled. The device used is a twin slot antenna coupled NbN HEB mixer with a bridge area of 1×0.15??m2, and a critical temperature of 8.3?K. In the experiment the...

Current-induced vortex unbinding in bolometer mixers

We present a description of the current-voltage characteristics of hot electron bolometers in terms of the current-dependent intrinsic resistive transition of NbN films. We find that, by including this current dependence, we can correctly predict the complete current-voltage characteristics, showing excellent agreement with measurements for both...