Generation-recombination noise

The fundamental sensitivity limit for kinetic inductance detectors

Journal article (2012)
Department
Kavli Institute of NanoScience (AS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: ©2012 The Author(s). This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
DOI: https://doi.org/doi:10.1007/s10909-012-0519-5
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Published Date

21-01-2012

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Source:

Journal of low temperature physics, 167(Apr)2012

Faculty

Applied Sciences

Department

Kavli Institute of NanoScience

Abstract

We present measurements of quasiparticle generation-recombination noise in aluminium Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors, the fundamental noise source for these detectors. Both the quasiparticle lifetime and the number of quasiparticles can be determined from the noise spectra. The number of quasiparticles saturates to 10 ?m?3 at temperatures below 160 mK, which is shown to limit the quasiparticle lifetime to 4 ms. These numbers lead to a generation-recombination noise limited noise equivalent power (NEP) of 1.5 × 10?19 W/Hz1/2. Since NEP ? Nqp, lowering the number of remnant quasiparticles will be crucial to improve the sensitivity of these detectors. We show that the readout power now limits the number of quasiparticles and thereby the sensitivity.