Prospective performance of graphene HEB for ultrasensitive detection of sub-mm radiation

Abstract

Noise Equivalent Power and time constant of a submillimeter wave Hot-Electron Bolometer (HEB) made from monolayer graphene are analyzed using the lowest electron-phonon thermal conductance data reported to date. Frequency-domain multiplexed Johnson Noise Thermometry (JNT) is used for the detector readout. Planar microantennas or waveguides can provide efficient coupling of the graphene microdevice to radiation. The results show that the graphene HEB detector can be radiation background limited at very low level corresponding to the photon noise on a space telescope with cryogenically cooled mirror. Beside the high sensitivity, absence of a hard power saturation limit, higher operating temperature, and the ability to read 1000s of elements with a single broadband amplifier will be the advantages of such a detector.