Superconducting detectors and mixers for millimeter and submillimeter astrophysics

Superconducting detectors will play an increasingly significant role in astrophysics, especially at millimeter through far-IR wave-lengths, where the scientific opportunities include key problems in astronomy and cosmology. Superconducting detectors offer many benefits: outstanding sensitivity, lithographic fabrication, and large array sizes, especially through the recent development of multi-plexing techniques. This paper describes the scientific opportuni-ties, the basic physics of these devices, the techniques for radiation coupling, and reviews the recent progress in direct detectors, such as transition-edge bolometers, and the work on tunnel junction (su-perconductor–insulator–superconductor) and hot-electron mixers. Keywords—Astronomy, millimeter-wave detectors, radio as-tronomy, submillimeter-wave detectors, superconducting devices, superconducting radiation detectors, superconductor–insu-lator–superconductor mixers. I