Nanowire bolometer using a 2D high-temperature superconductor

Abstract Superconducting nanowires are very important due to their applications ranging from quantum technology to astronomy. In this work, we implement a non-invasive process to fabricate nanowires of high- T c superconductor Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8+ δ . We demonstrate that our nanowires can be used as bolometers in the visible range with very high responsivity of 9.7 × 10 3 V W −1 . Interestingly, in a long (30 μ m) nanowire of 9 nm thickness and 700 nm width, we observe bias current-dependent localized spots of maximum photovoltage. Moreover, the scalability of the bolometer responsivity with the normal state resistance of the nanowire could allow further performance improvement by increasing the nanowire length in a meander geometry. We observe phase slip events in nanowires with small cross-sections (12 nm thick, 300 nm wide, and 3 μ m long) at low temperatures. Our study presents a scalable method for realizing sensitive bolometers working near the liquid-nitrogen temperature.