Novel superconducting proximized heterostructures for ultrafast photodetection

Weak ferromagnet/superconductor (F/S) proximity bilayers have been fabricated and characterized for basic physics studies concerning the ultrafast carrier dynamics in layered materials. The normalized reflectivity change (ΔR/R) as a function of the time delay between the pump and the probe laser beams has been measured in F/S heterostructures formed by a low critical temperature superconductor (Nb) with a NiCu overlayer, and a high Tc superconductor (YBCO) covered by Au/NiCu and manganite (LSMO) overlayers. The attention is mainly focused to the investigation of nonequilibrium excitation dynamics inside different bilayers in the low temperature region. The presence of the weak ferromagnetic overlayer produces faster optical relaxation times with respect to sole superconducting films. The results are promising in view of potential applications as ultrafast kinetic inductance superconducting photodetectors as confirmed by preliminary time-resolved photoimpedance experiments on both Nb and NiCu(21 nm)/Nb(70 nm) samples.