A new fabrication technique for ultra-small diffusion-cooled hot-electron bolometers

Hot-electron bolometers (HEBs) are becoming the technology of choice for heterodyne mixing in the short submillimeter wavelength regime (frequencies above 1 THz). In this paper, we describe a new, versatile, easily variable method of diffusion-cooled HEB fabrication using a focused-ion beam (FIB) microscope. This technique does not require electron-beam lithography or definition of the bolometer element by lift-off.