Copper ridges improve performance

A series of copper ridges nearly doubles the resolution of experimental X-ray sensors, enabling more precise identification of the X-ray "fingerprints" of different atoms, researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report.

The sensors are expected to be powerful tools for astronomy, such as in determining the temperature and motion of matter in space, and for semiconductor materials analysis, helping to differentiate between nanoscale contaminant particles on silicon wafers.

The new design, described in the November 7 issue of Applied Physics Letters, can measure X-ray energies with an uncertainty of only 2.4 electron volts (eV), breaking through a long-standing 4.5 eV plateau in the performance of superconducting "transition edge" sensors (TES).

The cryogenic sensors absorb individual X-rays and measure the energy based on the resulting rise in temperature. The temperature is measured with a bilayer of normal metal (copper) and superconducting metal (molybdenum) that changes resistance in response to the heat from the radiation. The new TES design performs about 40 times better than conventional X-ray sensors made of silicon and lithium.