Study Of The Superconducting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector For The Application Of Single Photon Detection

Microwave kinetic inductance detectors are made of high Q microwave resonator using the low band gap of superconducting materials, with the destruction of Cooper Pairs by a photon event that affecting the kinetic inductance of the circuit, to achieve the detection of single photons. Its special structure and performance make it has great advantages in the application of array, so it has been widely used in astronomical detection, especially in the cosmic microwave background radiation detection.Firstly, this paper briefly introduces the application and development of astronomical telescope photosensitive element composed of low temperature detector, including pioneering achievements made in the observation of celestial bodies in the universe of the Hubble Space Telescope, and radiation detection made outstanding contribution in the cosmic microwave background Cosmic Background Explorer, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy probe and Planck detector. Through the comparative analysis of the development of the astronomical detectors, combining the special needs of detection task, that microwave kinetic inductance detectors have many advantages and great application value in the current and future astronomical missions.Then, this paper analyzes the basic theory of superconductivity, emphatically introduces the London penetration depth given by the theory of London and the Cooper Pairs from the theory of BCS, combining the basic theory of microwave circuit, coplanar waveguide geometry structure and two kinds of microwave resonators with a half-wavelength and a quarter-wavelength, comprehensively and deeply studies the realization that the basic principle of single photons detection function of microwave kinetic inductance detectors.Besides, this paper gives the microelectronics processing technology of microwave kinetic inductance detectors, including magnetron sputtering, coating ultraviolet-rays photoresist exposure and reactive ion etching technology. With consideration of the characteristics of microwave signal transmission in the space, this paper also presents the design of metal sample box and microwave PCB for the transition between resonators and external measurement. Moreover the ultrasonic bonding used in the microstructure bonding is included.Finally, this paper shows the successful design and fabrication of a variety of superconducting microwave resonators, and makes a detailed description of these resonators. The resonators are made from a niobium film with the thickness at nanometer level on pure Si substrate which has a high-resistance. Also briefly introduced the cryogenic platform and the measuring system. This paper show the measurement of the resonators at extremely low temperature environment (20mk-1.2k) with a vector network analyzer, and recording of the variation with temperature and power parameters of the propagation characteristic S21of resonators, and gives the corresponding theoretical analysis about some result. This paper is involved in the test of continuous light irradiation resonator in low-temperature environment, the experimental results shows that the response of continuous light irradiation in a certain range similar to the effect that produced by increasing of temperature. In the resonators that has been tested, a quarter-wavelength resonator with the resonant frequency fo=1.8575GHz at20mK and load Q values Qi=1.1654x106is the most outstanding work.