Noise Measurements in Hot-Electron Titanium Nanobolometers

We are presenting experimental results on the electrical noise in small titanium hot-electron nanobolometers with the critical temperature above 300 mK. The noise data demonstrate good agreement with the conventional bolometer theory prediction. The noise is dominated by the thermal energy fluctuations (phonon noise) when the operating temperature is set just a few mK below the superconducting transition. The corresponding noise equivalent power (NEP) is about 3 times 10 -18 W/Hz 1/2 for the smallest measured device. The relative NEP's for the two devices measured scale roughly as the square root of the device volume as one would expect from the theory. Therefore an additional factor of 2-3 reduction of NEP may be feasible if the length and width of our device are further reduced. The demonstrated combination of the low NEP and the relatively high operating temperature is attractive for submillimeter low-background applications.