A millimeter-wave hyper-spectral device based on Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors [IMA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2211.04814


Millimetre-wave astronomy is an important tool for cosmology. In this context, the Line Intensity Mapping (LIM) technique has been proposed to map in three dimensions the specific intensity due to line (e.g. [CII], CO) emission. This mapping is particularly interesting to study the primordial galaxies as a function of redshift. LIM observations are typically carried out on single dish telescopes. Hyper-spectral integrated devices have the potential to replace the current Fourier transform, or the planned Fabry-Perot based instruments to achieve efficient, i.e. large field-of-view, line intensity mapping at millimetre and sub-millimetre wavelengths. The aim is to perform hyper-spectral mapping, with a spectral resolution 100-1000, over large, i.e. thousands of beams, instantaneous patches of the Sky. The device that we have developed allows avoiding moving parts, complicated or dispersive optics or tunable filters to be operated at cryogenics temperatures. We designed, fabricated and tested an innovative integrated hyperspectral device sensitive in the 80-90GHz range. It contains nineteen horns and sixteen spectral-imaging channels, each selecting a frequency band of about 0.1GHz. A conical horn antenna, coupled to a planar superconducting filter, collects the radiation. A capacitively coupled Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detector (LEKID) is then in charge of dissipating and sensing the super-current established in the filter. The prototype is fabricated with only two photo-lithography steps over a commercial mono-crystalline sapphire substrate. It exhibits a spectral resolution R=800. The optical noise equivalent power is in the observational relevant 1e-17 W per sqrt(Hz) range. The device is polarisation-sensitive, paving the way to spectro-polarimetry measurements over very large field-of-views.

Read this paper on arXiv…

U. Chowdhury, F. Levy-Bertrand, M. Calvo, et. al.
Thu, 10 Nov 22
54/78

Comments: Submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysics. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2209.02484