Superconductor Detectors Fundamentals and Analytical Applications

This book highlights how superconductor detectors that replace conventional detectors, such as semiconductor detectors and secondary electron multipliers, can overcome the fundamental limitations of certain analytical instruments. As an educational guide to students entering this field, this book begins with the history of superconductor detectors and the fundamentals on detector operation, categorizing two detection schemes of thermal detection and quantum detection. For experts, the book offers a review on the oldest and latest endeavors. Comparison between the detector physics of superconductor detectors and that of semiconductor detectors reveals unsolved issues such as quasiparticle excitation, Fano factor, average energy consumed for generating carriers, phonon loss, and spatial inhomogeneity. Instrument developers will be stimulated by the comparison of performance figures of different superconductor detector types.  The novel measurement data included will contribute to a wide range of fields, such as dentistry, molecular biology, energy-saving society, planetary science, and prebiotic organic molecules in space. This book is correspondingly suitable for a broad audience in the detector research community, seeking to deepen their understanding of detector physics and its applications.

Chapter 1 Historical Overview.- Chapter 2 Particle Detection.- Chapter 3 Quantum Detection.- Chapter 4 Thermal Detection.- Chapter 6 Analytical Applications.- APPENDIX A. Mathematical derivation.- APPENDIX B. IUPAC notation of characteristic X-ray lines and interaction with detector materials.- APPENDIX C. Terminology and nomenclature.

A native of Kochi Prefecture in Japan, Masataka Ohkubo graduated from the National Institute of Technology, Kochi College, in 1979. He received the M.S. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Toyohashi University of Technology in 1983. He worked with Toyota Central R&D Labs., Inc. from 1983 to 1993, during which time high-temperature superconductors (HTSs) were discovered. With the work on epitaxial thin-film growth and characterization of HTSs, he received the Ph.D. degree from Toyohashi University of Technology in 1991. In 1993, he joined the quantum radiation division at Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL). Between 1995 to 1997, he was a guest researcher at Karlsruhe Research Center (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) and a visiting researcher at University of Tübingen. He explored the possibility of using the intrinsic Josephson effect in BSCCO thin films for developing superconductor X-ray detectors. After returning to ETL, his research topics included X-ray spectroscopy and mass spectrometry with superconductor detectors such as superconductor tunnel junction detectors (STJDs), transition edge sensor detectors (TESDs), and superconductor nanostrip particle detectors (SSPDs). After ETL merged with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in 2001, he pursued innovations in superconductivity-based analytical science, collaborating with researchers worldwide.

His current international duties include serving as the convener of International Electrotechnical Commission – Technical Committee 90 / Working Group 14 (IEC-TC90/WG14) for superconductor electronic devices, as an associate editor of the IEEE Superconductivity News Forum (SNF), and as a board member of several international conferences. He is now an emeritus researcher in AIST.