Anomalous response of superconducting titanium nitride resonators to terahertz radiation

We present an experimental study of kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) fabricated of atomic layer deposited TiN films and characterized at radiation frequencies of 350 GHz. The responsivity to radiation is measured and found to increase with the increase in radiation powers, opposite to what is expected from theory and observed for hybrid niobium titanium nitride/aluminium (NbTiN/Al) and all-aluminium (all-Al) KIDs. The noise is found to be independent of the level of the radiation power. The noise equivalent power improves with higher radiation powers, also opposite to what is observed and well understood for hybrid NbTiN/Al and all-Al KIDs. We suggest that an inhomogeneous state of these disordered superconductors should be used to explain these observations. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.