Large Format, Background Limited Arrays of Kinetic Inductance Detectors for Sub-mm Astronomy
Abstract
We present the development of large format imaging arrays for sub-mm astronomy based upon microwave Kinetic Inductance detectors and their read-out. In particular we focus on the arrays developed for the A-MKID instrument for the APEX telescope. AMKID contains 2 focal plane arrays, covering a field of view of 15?x15?. One array is optimized for the 350 GHz telluric window, the other for the 850 GHz window. Both arrays are constructed from four 61 x 61 mm detector chips, each of which contains up to 3400 detectors and up to 880 detectors per readout line. The detectors are lens antenna coupled MKIDs made from NbTiN and Aluminium that reach photon noise limited sensitivity in combination with a high optical coupling. The lens-antenna radiation coupling enables the use of 4K optics and Lyot stop due to the intrinsic directivity of the detector beam, allowing a simple cryogenic architecture. We discuss the pixel design and verification, detector packaging and the array performance. We will also discuss the readout system, which is a combination of a digital and analog back-end that can read-out up to 4000 pixels simultaneously using frequency division multiplexing.
- Publication:
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Atacama Large-Aperture Submm/mm Telescope (AtLAST)
- Pub Date:
- January 2018
- DOI:
- 10.5281/zenodo.1158838
- Bibcode:
- 2018alas.confE...1B
- Keywords:
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- Zenodo community atlast2018