Abstract: Multi-layer transition-edge sensors (TES) having improved performance, a method for preparing them and methods of using them. Specifically, the improvement lies in providing normal metal strips along the edges of the superconducting and normal metal layers parallel to the current flow in the TES during operation. These strips (referred to as “banks”) provide for both improved detector performance and improved detector robustness against corrosion. This improvement is an important advance particularly for TES-based microcalorimeter detectors. The improved TESs also have many other applications based on the very precise thermometer function achieved by the TES.

Abstract: A radiation detection device includes a scintillator having an upper scintillator body section and a lower scintillator body section. The upper section forms an arcuate-shaped cap through which the incident radiation enters the scintillator, and the lower section has sidewalls disposed at a selected taper angle with respect to the longitudinal axis of the scintillator body and an optically transmissive window disposed opposite the cap of the upper section such that optical photons can pass from the scintillator to a photodetector coupled to the window. An optically-diffuse reflective layer is disposed over the sidewalls and the cap. The sidewalls typically have a positive taper angle, being closer to one another near the optically transmissive window and farther from one another near the cap. The arcuate shape of the cap typically conforms to the arc of a circle centered on the optically transmissive window.