Demonstration of Thermal Images Captured by a Backside Illuminated Transition Edge Bolometer

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a superconducting YBCO-based detector capable of capturing thermal images at room temperature, utilizing a specialized structure and optical setup to detect infrared radiation from objects at 300K to 400K.

Contribution

The work introduces a high-responsivity superconducting thermal detector with a backside absorber and optical focusing system for infrared thermal imaging at room temperature.

Findings

Successfully captured thermal images of objects between 300K and 400K.

Demonstrated high responsivity of the superconducting detector.

Effective infrared absorption with the backside absorber layer.

Abstract

A high temperature superconducting detector was fabricated to capture the thermal images in room temperature background. The detector was made of YBa2Cu3O7-{\delta} (YBCO) superconducting thin film deposited on an Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) substrate, structurally modified for high responsivity performance. A very thin absorber layer was implemented on the backside of the detector to increase the absorption of the device at infrared (IR) range of frequencies. To capture thermal images, a movable off-axis parabolic mirror on XY plane was used for focusing the incoming IR radiation including the thermal signal of the objects onto the device surface. The captured thermal images belong to the objects within the temperature range between 300K and 400K, which correspond to our imaging optics.