B. G. Taylor

TL;DR: In this paper, a superconducting tunnel junction was proposed to detect individual photons at rates up to 2.5 kHz in the wavelength range 200-500 nm, with an intrinsic spectral resolution of 45 nm and a quantum efficiency estimated to be about 50 per cent.

Abstract: The properties of superconducting tunnel junctions based on niobium are investigated. The limiting resolution of such junctions should be ⋍ 4 eV for 6 keV X-rays. Currently only between 2 to 25% of the theoretical charge is detected. The principal loss mechanisms, which not only reduce charge but seriously degrade resolution, are found to be phonon loss to the substrate, and recombination of the excess quasi-particle population in both films. The phonon loss is probably due to relaxation phonons from quasi-particles relaxing towards the bandgap. The quasi-particle self recombination is a direct result of the very large excursion from equilibrium produced during the X-ray photoabsorption process. Finally 6 keV X-rays have been detected directly in sapphire crystals by using the niobium junction only as a detector of beamed ballistic phonons. The use of a suitable crystal as the X-ray absorber and phonon source opens up interesting possibilities for position sensitive spectrometers based on high quality niobium junctions.

TL;DR: In this article, a search for γ-ray sources using data from the ESA γray satellite COS B revealed 10 new unknown sources with a luminosity in excess of 1035 erg s−1.

TL;DR: In this article, a tantalum-based photon counting superconducting tunnel junctions (STJ) was proposed for optical and ultraviolet astronomy applications, with a capacity of between 200 and 700 nm with a maximum of at 550 nm.

TL;DR: In this article, the first observations of an astronomical object using a superconducting tunnel junction (STJ) device, a pixel detector with intrinsic energy resolution in the optical wavelength range, were reported.