Amorphous Y-Ba-Cu-O Thin Films: Noise Studies and Pyroelectric Properties for Uncooled Infrared and Terahertz Detection Applications

Oxygen depleted semiconducting Y-Ba-Cu-O exhibits an amorphous phase ( $a$ -YBCO), obtained at low deposition temperature (150 °C), which can be applied to fast uncooled near-infrared or THz detection. In the first part, we investigate room temperature noise performances of planar and trilayer detectors fabricated on silicon substrates. The best noise equivalent power (NEP) and detectivity $D^{\ast}$ are at the state of the art: e.g., $NEP=2.0\ \text{pW}/\text{Hz}^{1/2}$ and $D^{\ast}=6.6\times 10^{9}\ \text{cm}\cdot\text{Hz}^{1/2}/\mathrm{W}$ for planar structures. In the second part, we examine the pyroelectric response of $a$ -YBCO to extract the pyroelectric coefficient $p=600\ \mu\mathrm{C}\cdot \mathrm{m}^{-2}\cdot \mathrm{K}^{-1}$ at 300 K, as first estimate.