New fabrication techniques for PASS

✍ Scribed by Kotlicki, A.; Turrell, B.G.; DiSanto, D.; Drukier, A.K.

• Book ID: 103852866
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 347 KB
• Volume: 520
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-9002
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2003.11.286

✦ Synopsis

The Planar Array of Superheated Superconductors was introduced by the UBC group in 1990. It is a regular array of micron-sized spheres of indium or tin that acts as a detector of radiation or particles in a similar fashion to the Superheated Superconducting Granule Detector. Over the years, it was demonstrated that this device exhibited good energy sensitivity, a narrow spread of individual transition temperatures, position sensitivity, and, using line geometry, partial avalanche effects. The great difficulty, however, was to produce a detector of sufficient size. We discuss three possible approaches to this problem. The first method is to fabricate the array photolithographically in much the same way as before, but on a much larger scale. The second way is to emboss squares in a metal film with an ultrafine cutting tool before melting. The third technique involves depositing the metal on to a structured surface then melting. Some experimental tests are described.