Superconducting tunnel junctions (STJs) are applicable to as photon detectors with an energy resolution and a high photon-counting rate. The absorption of a photon in the superconductor of the STJ generates a number of quasiparticles that is proportional to the photon energy. Especially for soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) applications, STJs have good performance because of their high absorption efficiency below 1 keV. We are developing an energy-dispersive photon detector for EUV radiation using STJs with Al trapping layers. We evaluated the performance of the detector for EUV photons by using the Synchrotron Facility at KEK-PF in Tsukuba, Japan. We achieved an energy resolution of FWHM=18 eV (including the external noise of 17.6 eV) for 55 eV EUV photons with a 100 × 100 μ m 2 STJ. We present details of the junction design and discuss our experiments and the results.
On the factors governing the energy resolution of Ta-based superconducting tunnel junctions