Photon-noise-limited cold-electron bolometer based on strong electron self-cooling for high-performance cosmology missions

Bolometers for balloon and space missions have seen extensive development because of their capacity to test primordial conditions of the Universe. The major improvements consist in lowering the operating temperature to reach higher sensitivities. Here we show that an array of 192 cold-electron bolometers (CEB) demonstrates photon-noise-limited operation at the cryostat temperature of 310 mK due to effective self-cooling of the absorber. The direct electron cooling of nanoabsorber placed between normal metal - insulator - superconductor junctions has considerably higher efficiency than indirect cooling through massive suspended platform, that requires overcoming a weak electron-phonon conductance. The electron temperature reached 120 mK without a power load, and 225 mK with a 60 pW power load with self-noise of a single bolometer below $$3\cdot 1{0}^{-18}\ {\rm{W}}\ {{\rm{Hz}}}^{-1/2}$$ 3 ⋅ 1 0 - 18 W Hz - 1 ∕ 2 at a 0.01 pW power load. This bolometer works at electron temperature less than phonon temperature, thus being a good candidate for future space missions without the use of dilution refrigerators.