Energy resolution of terahertz single-photon-sensitive bolometric detectors

Understand

We report measurements of the energy resolution of ultra-sensitive superconducting bolometric detectors.

• The device is a superconducting titanium nanobridge with niobium contacts.
• A fast microwave pulse is used to simulate a single higher-frequency photon, where the absorbed energy of the pulse is equal to the photon energy.
• This technique allows precise calibration of the input coupling and avoids problems with unwanted background photons.