Superconducting Nanowire Detection of Neutral Atoms and Molecules via Their Internal and Kinetic Energy in the eV Range (Adv. Phys. Res. 2/2025)

Abstract

Superconducting nanowires

In article number 2400133, Markus Arndt and co-workers show superconducting nanowires to be a powerful tool for detecting the impact of neutral metastable atoms and neutral molecules at low energy. They achieve remarkable detection efficiencies, responding sensitively to internal electronic energies as low as 11.6 eV and impact energies as small as 3 eV. Their performance in detecting neutral molecules exceeds that of channel electron multipliers by more than 106, opening new opportunities for measurements in atomic and molecular beam physics.