High- Tc bolometers

A description is given of recent work on high-{Tc} superconducting bolometers for infrared and millimeter wavelengths. The first report describes measurements of the thermal boundary resistance between YBCO films and various substrates. This resistance is much larger than expected from the acoustic impedance mismatch model and gives a thermal time constant in the nanosecond range for typical YBCO films. Then, there are reports on the design and experimental performance of two different types of high-{Tc} bolometric detectors. One is a conventional bolometer with a gold-black absorber. The other is an antenna-coupled microbolometer. Finally, there is a description of the ultimate performance expected from high-{Tc} bolometers on Si and Si{sub 3}N{sub 4} membrane substrates, with comparisons to other detectors used for thermal imaging. 7 refs