Surface wave control for large arrays of microwave kinetic inductance detectors
Stephen J. C. Yates, Andrey M. Baryshev, Ozan Yurduseven, Juan Bueno, Kristina K. Davis, Lorenza Ferrari, Willem Jellema, Nuria Llombart, Vignesh Murugesan, Dav… 展开作者
Stephen J. C. Yates, Andrey M. Baryshev, Ozan Yurduseven, Juan Bueno, Kristina K. Davis, Lorenza Ferrari, Willem Jellema, Nuria Llombart, Vignesh Murugesan, David J. Thoen, Jochem J. A. Baselmans
备注：
accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology
Large ultra-sensitive detector arrays are needed for present and future observatories for far infra-red, submillimeter wave (THz), and millimeter wave astronomy. With increasing array size, it is increasingly important to control stray radiation inside the detector chips themselves, the surface wave. We demonstrate this effect with focal plane arrays of 880 lens-antenna coupled Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs). Presented here are near field measurements of the MKID optical response versus the position on the array of a reimaged optical source. We demonstrate that the optical response of a detector in these arrays saturates off-pixel at the $\sim-30$ dB level compared to the peak pixel response. The result is that the power detected from a point source at the pixel position is almost identical to the stray response integrated over the chip area. With such a contribution, it would be impossible to measure extended sources, while the point source sensitivity is degraded due to an increase of the stray loading. However, we show that by incorporating an on-chip stray light absorber, the surface wave contribution is reduced by a factor $>$10. With the on-chip stray light absorber the point source response is close to simulations down to the $\sim-35$ dB level, the simulation based on an ideal Gaussian illumination of the optics. In addition, as a crosscheck we show that the extended source response of a single pixel in the array with the absorbing grid is in agreement with the integral of the point source measurements.
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) sensitive to light in the ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths are superconducting micro-resonators that are capable of measuring photon arrival times to microsecond precision and estimating each photon's energy. The resolving power of non-membrane MKIDs has remained stubbornly around 10 at 1 $μ$m despite significant improvements in the system noise. Here we show that the resolving power can be roughly doubled with a simple bilayer design without needing to place the device on a membrane, avoiding a significant increase in fabrication complexi…
Microwave Kinetic Inductance detectors (MKIDs) have been recognized as a powerful new tool for single photon detection. These highly multiplexed superconducting devices give timing and energy measurement for every detected photon. However, the full potential of MKID single photon spectroscopy has not been reached , the achieved energy resolution is lower than expected from first principles. Here, we study the efficiency in the phonon downconversion process following the absorption of energetic photons in MKIDs. Assuming previously published material properties, we measure an average downconver…
We report on the development of Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) using platinum silicide as the sensor material. MKIDs are an emerging superconducting detector technology, capable of measuring the arrival times of single photons to better than two microseconds and their energies to around ten percent. Previously, MKIDs have been fabricated using either sub-stoichiometric titanium nitride or aluminum, but TiN suffers from spatial inhomogeneities in the superconducting critical temperature and Al has a low kinetic inductance fraction, causing low detector sensitivity. To address th…
The energy resolution of a single photon counting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) can be degraded by noise coming from the primary low temperature amplifier in the detector's readout system. Until recently, quantum limited amplifiers have been incompatible with these detectors due to dynamic range, power, and bandwidth constraints. However, we show that a kinetic inductance based traveling wave parametric amplifier can be used for this application and reaches the quantum limit. The total system noise for this readout scheme was equal to ~2.1 in units of quanta. For incident photon…
Superconducting detectors are a modern technology applied in various fields. The microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) is one of cutting-edge superconducting detector. It is based on the principle of a superconducting resonator circuit. A radiation entering the MKID breaks the Cooper pairs in the superconducting resonator, and the intensity of the radiation is detected as a variation of the resonant condition. Therefore, calibration of the detector responsivity, i.e., the variation of the resonant phase with respect to the number of Cooper-pair breaks (quasiparticles), is important. We …
A microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) is a cutting-edge superconducting detector, and its principle is based on a superconducting resonator circuit. The superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of the MKID is an important parameter because various MKID characterization parameters depend on it. In this paper, we propose a method to measure the Tc of the MKID by changing the applied power of the readout microwaves. A small fraction of the readout power is deposited in the MKID, and the number of quasiparticles in the MKID increases with this power. Furthermore, the quasiparticle life…
Following optical pulses ($λ=405~\text{nm}$) on titanium nitride (TiN) Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) cooled down at temperatures $T \le T_c / 20$ ($T_c \simeq 4.6~\text{K}$), we observe a large phase-response highlighting two different modes simultaneously that are nevertheless related. The first corresponds to the well-known transition of cooper-pair breaking into quasi-particles which produces a known phase response. This is immediately followed by a large inverse response lasting several hundreds of microseconds to several milliseconds depending on the temperature. We propo…
We present the development of a second generation digital readout system for photon counting microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) arrays operating in the optical and near-IR wavelength bands. Our system retains much of the core signal processing architecture from the first generation system, but with a significantly higher bandwidth, enabling readout of kilopixel MKID arrays. Each set of readout boards is capable of reading out 1024 MKID pixels multiplexed over 2 GHz of bandwidth; two such units can be placed in parallel to read out a full 2048 pixel microwave feedline over a 4 -- 8 GH…
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are the most attractive radiation detectors for far-infrared and sub-mm astronomy: They combine ultimate sensitivity with the possibility to create very large detector arrays, in excess of 10 000 pixels. This is possible by reading-out the arrays using RF frequency division multiplexing, which allows multiplexing ratios in excess of 1000 pixels per readout line. We describe a novel readout system for large arrays of MKIDs, operating in a 2 GHz band in the 4-8 GHz range. The readout, which is a combination of a digital front- and back-end and an an…
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Devices (MKIDs) are poised to allow for massively and natively multiplexed photon detectors arrays and are a natural choice for the next-generation CMB-Stage 4 experiment which will require 105 detectors. In this proceed- ing we discuss what noise performance of present generation MKIDs implies for CMB measurements. We consider MKID noise spectra and simulate a telescope scan strategy which projects the detector noise onto the CMB sky. We then analyze the simulated CMB + MKID noise to understand particularly low frequency noise affects the various features of the C…
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are a class of superconducting cryogenic detectors that simultaneously exhibit energy resolution, time resolution and spatial resolution. The pixel yield of MKID arrays is usually a critical figure of merit in the characterisation of an MKIDs array. Currently, for MKIDs intended for the detection of optical and near-infrared photons, only the best arrays exhibit a pixel yield as high as 75-80%. The uniformity of the superconducting film used for the fabrication of MKIDs arrays is often regarded as the main limiting factor to the pixel yield of an …
Hafnium is an elemental superconductor which crystallizes in a hexagonal close packed structure, has a transition temperature $T_{C} \simeq 400 mK$, and has a high normal state resistivity around $90 μΩ. cm$. In Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs), these properties are advantageous since they allow for creating detectors sensitive to optical and near infra-red radiation. In this work, we study how sputter conditions and especially the power applied to the target during the deposition, affect the hafnium $T_{C}$, resistivity, stress, texture and preferred crystal orientation. We find…
One of the advantages of kinetic inductance detectors is their intrinsic frequency domain multiplexing capability. However, fabrication imperfections usually give rise to resonance frequency deviations, which create frequency collision and limit the array yield. Here we study the resonance frequency deviation of a 4-inch kilo-pixel lumped-element kinetic inductance detector (LEKID) array using optical mapping. Using the measured resonator dimensions and film thickness, the fractional deviation can be explained within $\pm 25\times 10^{-3}$, whereas the residual deviation is due to variation of…
Optical and near-IR Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors, or MKIDs, are superconducting photon counting detectors capable of measuring the energy and arrival time of individual OIR photons without read noise or dark current. In this whitepaper we will discuss the current status of OIR MKIDs and MKID-based instruments.
We have fabricated and characterized 10,000 and 20,440 pixel Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) arrays for the Dark-speckle Near-IR Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer (DARKNESS) and the MKID Exoplanet Camera (MEC). These instruments are designed to sit behind adaptive optics systems with the goal of directly imaging exoplanets in a 800-1400 nm band. Previous large optical and near-IR MKID arrays were fabricated using substoichiometric titanium nitride (TiN) on a silicon substrate. These arrays, however, suffered from severe non-uniformities in the TiN critical temperat…
We develop a simple coordinate transformation which can be employed to compensate for the nonlinearity introduced by a Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector's (MKID) homodyne readout scheme. This coordinate system is compared to the canonically used polar coordinates and is shown to improve the performance of the filtering method often used to estimate a photon's energy. For a detector where the coordinate nonlinearity is primarily responsible for limiting its resolving power, this technique leads to increased dynamic range, which we show by applying the transformation to data from a hafnium M…
We report on the design and performance of Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) sensitive to single photons in the optical to near-infrared range using hafnium as the sensor material. Our test device had a superconducting transition temperature of 395 mK and a room temperature normal state resistivity of 97 $μΩ$ cm with an RRR = 1.6. Resonators on the device displayed internal quality factors of around 200,000. Similar to the analysis of MKIDs made from other highly resistive superconductors, we find that modeling the temperature response of the detector requires an extra broadening …
Kinetic inductance detectors for millimeter and submillimeter astronomy / Détecteurs à inductance cinétique pour l'astronomie millimétrique et sub-millimétrique
我们提出了最近的发展动态电感探测器（KID）的大型阵列的探测器。主要应用是地基毫米波天文学。作为案例研究，我们特别关注我们自己的实验：NIKA（Néel IRAM KID阵列）。NIKA是目前使用KID仪器的最佳现场实验，包括为Pico Veleta的IRAM 30米望远镜设计的双波段成像系统。我们在这篇文章中描述，一般情况介绍后，KID的工作原理和读出电子，至关重要的是利用固有的KID多路复用。我们得出结论，在2010年10月举行的最后一次运行期间，NIKA在2 mm和1.4 mm处同时观察到的天文源的一个小子集。介绍了近年来有关电影电感探测大矩阵（KID）的研究成果，主要应用于太阳毫米波天文学。Nous détailons en particulier notre propre caméra：NIKA（Néel IRAM KID Arrays）qui est aujourd'hui l'instrument le plus abbatemettant en oeuvre des KID. NIKA是Pico Veleta的30米IRAM的双波段摄像机。通过对这些文字中的工具性背景的分析，我们解释了KIDS和演讲电子学的功能原理，这对于多路复用的潜在潜力至关重要。最后，我们提出了NIKA在2010年12月进行的2 mm和1.4 mm波段的观测结果。
We present a design for an array of kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) integrated with phased array antennas for imaging at 150 GHz under high background conditions. The microstrip geometry KID detectors are projected to achieve photon noise limited sensitivity with larger than 100 pW absorbed optical power. Both the microstrip KIDs and the antenna feed network make use of a low-loss amorphous silicon dielectric. A new aspect of the antenna implementation is the use of a NbTiN microstrip feed network to facilitate impedance matching to the 50 Ohm antenna. The array has 256 pixels on a 6-inch …
We show measurements of thermal kinetic inductance detectors (TKID) intended for millimeter wave cosmology in the 200-300 GHz atmospheric window. The TKID is a type of bolometer which uses the kinetic inductance of a superconducting resonator to measure the temperature of the thermally isolated bolometer island. We measure bolometer thermal conductance, time constant and noise equivalent power. We also measure the quality factor of our resonators as the bath temperature varies to show they are limited by effects consistent with coupling to two level systems.
We are developing superconducting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors to operate at near infrared and optical wavelengths for astronomy. In order to efficiently meet with the requirements of astronomical applications, we propose to replace the interdigitated capacitor by a metal, insulator, metal capacitor which has the advantage of presenting a larger capacitance value within a much smaller space. The pixel will occupy a space of typically 100 micrometers by 85 micrometers which is nine times less than a typical pixel size using the interdigitated capacitor operating at the same frequency,…
Thermal Kinetic Inductance Detectors (TKIDs) combine the excellent noise performance of traditional bolometers with a radio frequency multiplexing architecture that enables the large detector counts needed for the next generation of millimeter-wave instruments. In this paper, we first discuss the expected noise sources in TKIDs and derive the limits where the phonon noise contribution dominates over the other detector noise terms: generation-recombination, amplifier, and two-level system (TLS) noise. Second, we characterize aluminum TKIDs in a dark environment. We present measurements of TKID …
We have fabricated an array of subgap kinetic inductance detectors (SKIDs) made of granular aluminum ($T_c\sim$2~K) sensitive in the 80-90 GHz frequency band and operating at 300~mK. We measure a noise equivalent power of $1.3\times10^{-16}$~W/Hz$^{0.5}$ on average and $2.6\times10^{-17}$~W/Hz$^{0.5}$ at best, for an illuminating power of 50~fW per pixel. Even though the circuit design of SKIDs is identical to that of the kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs), the SKIDs operating principle is based on their sensitivity to subgap excitations. This detection scheme is advantageous because it avoid…
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are highly scalable detectors that have demonstrated nearly background-limited sensitivity in the far-infrared from high-altitude balloon-borne telescopes and space-like laboratory environments. In addition, the detectors have a rich design space with many optimizable parameters, allowing highly sensitive measurements over a wide dynamic range. For these reasons, MKIDs were chosen for the Experiment for Cryogenic Large-Aperture Intensity Mapping (EXCLAIM), a balloon-borne telescope targeting nearly background-limited performance in a high-altitude…
For astronomical instruments, accurate knowledge of the optical pointing and coupling are essential to characterize the alignment and performance of (sub-)systems prior to integration and deployment. Ideally, this requires the phase response of the optical system, which for direct (phase insensitive) detectors was not previously accessible. Here we show development of the phase sensitive complex beam pattern technique using a dual optical source heterodyne technique for a large field of view Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector camera at 350 GHz. We show here how you can analyze the measured …
We demonstrate strong negative electrothermal feedback accelerating and linearizing the response of a thermal kinetic inductance detector (TKID). TKIDs are a proposed highly multiplexable replacement to transition-edge sensors and measure power through the temperature-dependent resonant frequency of a superconducting microresonator bolometer. At high readout probe power and probe frequency detuned from the TKID resonant frequency, we observe electrothermal feedback loop gain up to $\mathcal L$ $\approx$ 16 through measuring the reduction of settling time. We also show that the detector respons…
Significant noise improvement in a Kinetic Inductance Phonon-Mediated detector by use of a wideband parametric amplifier
Washington University in St. Louis（圣路易斯华盛顿大学）；SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory（斯坦福直线加速器中心）；California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Stanford University（斯坦福大学）
Tunable responsivity and bandwidth in microwave kinetic inductance detectors via readout current nonlinearity
t0.technology；Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院喷气推进实验室）；Department of Physics and Trottier Space Institute, McGill University（麦吉尔大学物理系和特罗蒂尔太空研究所）
Using conventional superconductor theory we discuss and validate a model that describes the energy-resolving performance of an aluminium LEKID to single-photon absorption events. While aluminium is not the optimum material for single-photon counting applications, this material is well understood and is used to understand the underlying device physics of these detectors. We also discuss data analysis techniques used to extract single-photon detections from noisy data.
We present an analysis of the optical response of lumped-element kinetic-inductance detector arrays, based on the NIKA2 1mm array. This array has a dual-polarization sensitive Hilbert inductor for directly absorbing incident photons. We present the optical response calculated from a transmission line model, simulated with HFSS and measured using a Fourier transform spectrometer. We have estimated the energy absorbed by individual component of a pixel, such as the inductor. The difference between the absorption efficiencies is expected to be 20% from the simulations. The Fourier-transform spect…
We present a multi-chroic kinetic inductance detector (KID) pixel design integrated with a broadband hierarchical phased-array antenna. Each low-frequency pixel consists of four high-frequency pixels. Four passbands are designed from 125 to 365 GHz according to the atmospheric windows. The lumped element KIDs consist of 100-nm thick AlMn inductors and Nb parallel plate capacitors with hydrogenated amorphous Si dielectric. Two different coupling structures are designed to couple millimeter-wave from microstrip lines to KIDs. The KID designs are optimized for a 10-m-class telescope at a high, dr…
The next generation BLAST experiment (BLAST-TNG) is a suborbital balloon payload that seeks to map polarized dust emission in the 250 $μ$m, 350 $μ$m and 500 $μ$m wavebands. The instrument utilizes a stepped half-wave plate to reduce systematics. The general requirement of the detectors is that they are photon-noise-limited and dual-polarization sensitive. To achieve this goal, we are developing three monolithic arrays of cryogenic sensors, one for each waveband. Each array is feedhorn-coupled and each spatial pixel consists of two orthogonally spaced polarization-sensitive microwave kinetic in…
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) arrays are currently being developed and deployed for astronomical applications in the visible and near infrared and for sub-millimetre astronomy. One of the main drawbacks of MKIDs is that large arrays would exhibit a pixel yield, the percentage of individually distinguishable pixels to the total number of pixels, of 75 - 80 %. Imperfections arising during the fabrication can induce an uncontrolled shift in the resonance frequency of individual resonators which can end up resonating at the same frequency of a different resonator. This makes a numbe…
We develop a photon energy measurement scheme for single photon counting Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) that uses principal component analysis (PCA) to measure the energy of an incident photon from the signal ("photon pulse") generated by the detector. PCA can be used to characterize a photon pulse using an arbitrarily large number of features and therefore PCA-based energy measurement does not rely on the assumption of an energy-independent pulse shape that is made in standard filtering techniques. A PCA-based method for energy measurement is especially useful in applications …
Kinetic inductance detectors (KID) have great potential in astronomical observation, such as searching for exoplanets, because of their low noise, fast response and photon counting characteristics. In this paper, we present the design process and simulation results of a microstrip line coupled KIDs array for near-infrared astronomical observation. Compared with coplanar waveguide (CPW) feedlines, microstrip feedlines do not require air bridges, which simplify fabrication process. In the design part, we mainly focus on the impedance transforming networks, the KID structure, and the frequency cr…
