Effects of Normal Metal Features on Superconducting Transition-Edge Sensors

In transition-edge sensors (TESs), the addition of normal metal stripes on top of the superconducting bilayer, perpendicular to the current direction, is known to globally alter the sensitivity of the resistance R to changes in temperature T and current I. Here, we describe measurements of the dependence of the TES current on magnetic field B, bath temperature and voltage bias in devices with various numbers of stripes. We show that the normal metal features have a profound effect on the appearance of localized regions of very large (T/R) dR/dT. We associate this with changes in the current distribution and corresponding changes in the oscillatory pattern of I (B). 140 μm TESs with no stripes are found to have a relatively smooth resistive transition and sufficiently low noise that the measured energy resolution is 1.6 eV for X-rays of 1.5 keV. The predicted energy resolution at 6 keV is better than 2 eV, once the heat capacity is optimized for these higher energies..