Superconducting metallic glass transition-edge-sensors

1. A method for fabricating a superconducting metallic glass transition-edge-sensor (MGTES), comprising:

depositing a single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy on a substrate, wherein the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy is an absorber for the MGTES and is electrically connected to a circuit configured for readout and biasing to sense electromagnetic radiation.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the substrate comprises a low-stress-silicon-nitride (LSN) substrate of varying thickness.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the MGTES is deposited onto the substrate held at or near room temperature.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the MGTES is deposited onto the substrate held between 77-300 K.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

tuning a thermal conductance of the MGTES using a membrane-isolation method to support the MGTES.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

depositing superconducting leads of the MGTES onto the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy to electrically connect to the circuit, wherein the superconducting leads are comprised of superconducting amorphous metal alloys comprised of a same alloy system as the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy, but with chemical compositions chosen such that the same alloy system exhibits a higher superconducting transition temperature, T C .

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

reading out, using the circuit, one or more pixels from the MGTES using superconducting quantum interference (SQUID) amplifiers.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the biasing uses an output of the SQUID current readout in feedback to apply a bias voltage to the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy to maintain an operating point on a transition curve of the MGTES.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the MGTES is operated in a temperature range that is achieved using a closed-cycle cryogenic system that uses 3 He.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising formatting the MGTES into an array having 10 3 or more pixels.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising changing a chemical composition of the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy to control a T c of the MGTES.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein:

the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy comprises an early-transition-metal/late-transition-metal (ETM/LTM) alloy system that exhibits superconductive behavior; and

the early transition metal (ETM) elements are drawn from elements in Groups IVB, VB, and VIIB of the periodic table, and the late-transition (LTM) metal elements are drawn from elements in groups VIIIB, IB, and IIB of the periodic table.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the depositing comprises:

depositing a first metal onto the substrate; and

depositing a second metal onto the substrate;

wherein the first metal and the second metal are deposited under conditions to obtain the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy using a method of sputtering, atomic-layer-deposition, electron-beam evaporation, or thermal evaporation.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein:

the absorber comprises a modified laminated high fill-fraction array of Bi absorber structures;

the absorber comprises alternating individual Bi/Au films; and

a layer thickness of the Bi film increases intra-layer x-ray photon thermalization.

15. A superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor (MGTES) comprising:

a circuit configured for readout and biasing to sense electromagnetic radiation; and

an absorber, for the MGTES, that is electronically connected to the circuit, wherein the absorber comprises a single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy.

16. The superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor of claim 15 , wherein a thermal conductance of the MGTES is tuned using a membrane-isolation type method to support the MGTES.

17. The superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor of claim 15 further comprising:

superconducting leads that connect the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy to the circuit, wherein the superconducting leads are comprised of a different composition within a same alloy system as the superconducting amorphous metal alloys used as a thermistor element.

18. The superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor of claim 15 , further comprising:

a superconducting quantum interference (SQUID) amplifier that is used to read out, using the circuit, one or more pixels from the MGTES.

19. The superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor of claim 18 , wherein an output of the SQUID current readout in feedback is used to apply a bias voltage to the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy to maintain an operating point on a transition curve of the MGTES.

20. The superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor of claim 15 wherein the MGTES is operated in a temperature range that is achieved using a closed-cycle cryogenic system that uses 3 He, a continuous adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR with 4-stages), a He 3 /He 4 dilution refrigerator, or a cryogenic cooling system that uses liquid 4 He.

21. The superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor of claim 15 wherein the MGTES is formatted into an array having 10 3 or more pixels.

22. The superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor of claim 15 wherein a chemical composition of the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy is changed to control a T c of the MGTES.

23. The superconducting metallic glass transition-edge sensor of claim 15 , wherein:

the single-layer superconducting amorphous metal alloy comprises an early-transition-metal/late-transition (ETM/LTM) metal alloy system that exhibits superconductive behavior; and

the early transition metal (ETM) elements are drawn from elements in Groups IVB, VB, and VIIB of the periodic table, and the late-transition (LTM) metal elements are drawn from elements in groups VIIIB, IB, and IIB of the periodic table.