Development of Aluminum LEKIDs for Balloon-Borne Far-IR Spectroscopy
Abstract
We are developing lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) designed to achieve background-limited sensitivity for far-infrared (FIR) spectroscopy on a stratospheric balloon. The spectroscopic terahertz airborne receiver for far-infrared exploration will study the evolution of dusty galaxies with observations of the [CII] 158μm and other atomic fine-structure transitions at z=0.5 –1.5, both through direct observations of individual luminous infrared galaxies, and in blind surveys using the technique of line intensity mapping. The spectrometer will require large format (~1800 detectors) arrays of dual-polarization sensitive detectors with NEPs of 1×10^(−17) W Hz^(−1/2) . The low-volume LEKIDs are fabricated with a single layer of aluminum (20-nm-thick) deposited on a crystalline silicon wafer, with resonance frequencies of 100–250 MHz. The inductor is a single meander with a linewidth of 0.4μm , patterned in a grid to absorb optical power in both polarizations. The meander is coupled to a circular waveguide, fed by a conical feedhorn. Initial testing of a small array prototype has demonstrated good yield and a median NEP of 4×10^(−18) W Hz^(-1/2).
Additional Information
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018. Received: 6 November 2017 / Accepted: 16 April 2018. ACMB's work was supported by a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship. Detector development for starfire is supported by NASA Grant 15-APRA15-0081. We thank C. Groppi for generously providing the tool used to drill the feedhorns.Attached Files
Accepted Version - 1803.02470
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 86070
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20180426-144525767
- NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship
- 15-APRA15-0081
- NASA
- Created
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2018-04-27Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field