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Phonon excitation of quasiparticles in niobium and tantalum superconducting tunnel junction photon detectors.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>11/03/2004
<mark>Journal</mark>Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
Issue number1-3
Volume520
Number of pages4
Pages (from-to)263-266
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

We report phonon pulse measurements of quasiparticle (qp) self-recombination and trapping by Abrikosov vortice's in Nb and Ta superconducting tunnel junctions. The quasiparticle loss times, determined from the shape of the tunnel junction output pulse, were found to be strongly correlated with flux trapping. The measured results were compared with the model of Golubov and Houwman. It was found that qp self-recombination, as measured from the dependence of responsivity on absorbed phonon energy, was also modified by the presence of traps. A process of phonon-mediated de-trapping is proposed to explain the observed effects.