Real time quasiparticle tunneling measurements on an illuminated quantum capacitance detector

Quasiparticle tunneling events are measured in real time using a quantum capacitance detector (QCD), allowing for the extraction of tunneling rates as a function of temperature and optical loading of radiation coming from a black body source filtered to 200 m. The measurements are used to corroborate the basic operating principles of the QCD. An estimate of the residual quasiparticle density is made, and the noise equivalent power (NEP) is assessed to be 7.2×10−20W/Hz1/2 at the lowest signal power of 9.2×10−20W. This NEP was higher than the photon noise by only a factor of 7 over a wide signal power range.