Normal metal - superconductor decoupling as a source of thermal fluctuation noise in transition-edge sensors

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We have studied the origin of excess noise in superconducting transition-edge sensors (TES) with several different detector designs. We show that most of the observed noise and complex impedance features can be explained by a thermal model consisting of three bodies. We suggest that one of the thermal blocks and the corresponding thermal fluctuation noise arises due to the high-frequency thermal decoupling of the normal and superconducting phase regions inside the TES film. Our results are also consistent with the prediction that in thin bilayer proximitized superconductors, the jump in heat capacity at the critical temperature is smaller than the universal BCS theory result.