Possible use of bulk superconductor with tunnel junctions for nuclear radiation spectroscopy

Nuclear radiation detectors with Josephson junctions, as hitherto reported, were composed of thin superconducting strips and had a poor energy resolution. A conceptual study is made on improvement of these detectors, with special consideration of quasiparticle collection. A bulk superconductor is shown to be appropriate as a radiation detector. Superconducting tunnel junctions of two types are proposed for superconducting radiation detectors of excellent energy resolution. These have high barrier penetrability and large area in order to collect all the quasiparticles generated in the superconductor by nuclear radiation.