Multilayered Josephson transmission line based photon counting detector with ultra-high temporal and high spatial resolution

A superconducting Josephson transmission line (JTL) fabricated with multilayered tunnel junctions with thin (100 Å) superconducting layers may be used as an ionizing radiation detector. The suppression of the superconducting energy gap in the layers of such a JTL, due to the local deposition of energy by incident radiation, will initiate the propagation of one or more fluxons in the device. These fluxons represent digital information in the form processable by single flux quantum (SFQ) superconducting digital circuitry. Designs for JTL based detectors with temporal resolutions on the order of picoseconds and spatial resolution on the order of microns, along with numerical simulation results, are presented.