Abstract
Ultra-low-noise transition edge sensors (TES) with noise equivalent power lower than 2 \(\times \) 10\(^{-19}\) W/Hz\(^{1/2 }\) have been fabricated by SRON, which meet the sensitivity requirements for the far-infrared SAFARI instrument on space infrared telescope for cosmology and astrophysics. Our TES detector is based on a titanium/gold (Ti/Au) thermistor on a silicon nitride (SiN) island. The island is thermally linked with SiN legs to a silicon support structure at the bath temperature. The SiN legs are very thin (250 nm), narrow (500 nm), and long (above 300 \({\upmu } \)m); these dimensions are needed in leg-isolated bolometers to achieve the required level of sensitivity. In this paper, we describe the latest fabrication process for our TES bolometers with improved sensitivity.



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Acknowledgments
We acknowledge Gene Hilton and Dan Schmidt at NIST, Boulder, USA, for sharing their process recipe for the crystal bonding with us. Their helps and supports are really crucial for the success of our new fabrication route described in this paper. The authors would also like to thank Frank Dirne at TU Delft for his support for DRIE process and Ton van der Linden for making the SEM pictures.
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Ridder, M.L., Khosropanah, P., Hijmering, R.A. et al. Fabrication of Low-Noise TES Arrays for the SAFARI Instrument on SPICA. J Low Temp Phys 184, 60–65 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-015-1381-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-015-1381-z