This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 11453, including the Title Page, Copyright information, and Table of Contents.

TolTEC is a three-band imaging polarimeter for the Large Millimeter Telescope. Simultaneously observing with passbands at 1.1mm, 1.4mm and 2.0mm, TolTEC has diffraction-limited beams with FWHM of 5, 7, and 11 arcsec, respectively. Over the coming decade, TolTEC will perform a combination of PI-led and Open-access Legacy Survey projects. Herein we provide an overview of the instrument and give the first quantitative measures of its performance in the lab prior to shipping to the telescope in 2021.

The Mexico-UK Submillimetre Camera for AsTronomy (MUSCAT) is a 1.1 mm receiver consisting of 1,500 lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) for the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT; Volcán Sierra Negra in Puebla, México). MUSCAT utilises the maximum field of view of the LMT's upgraded 50-metre primary mirror and is the first México-UK collaboration to deploy a millimetre/sub-mm receiver on the Large Millimeter Telescope. Using a simplistic simulator, we estimate a predicted mapping speed for MUSCAT by combining the measured performance of MUSCAT with the observed sky conditions at the LMT. We compare this to a previously calculated bolometric-model mapping speed and find that our mapping speed is in good agreement when this is scaled by a previously reported empirical factor. Through this simulation we show that signal contamination due to sky fluctuations can be effectively removed through the use of principle component analysis. We also give an overview

The Next Generation Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST-TNG) is a submillimeter polarimeter designed to map interstellar dust and galactic foregrounds at 250, 350, and 500 microns during a 24-day Antarctic flight. The BLAST-TNG detector arrays are comprised of 918, 469, and 272 MKID pixels, respectively. The pixels are formed from two orthogonally oriented, crossed, linear-polarization sensitive MKID antennae. The arrays are cooled to sub 300 mK temperatures and stabilized via a closed cycle ³He sorption fridge in combination with a ⁴He vacuum pot. The detectors are read out through a combination of the second-generation Reconfigurable Open Architecture Computing Hardware (ROACH2) and custom RF electronics designed for BLAST-TNG. The firmware and software designed to readout and characterize these detectors was built from scratch by the BLAST team around these detectors, and has been adapted for use by other MKID instruments such as TolTEC and OLIMPO.1 We present an overview of these systems as well as in-depth methodology of the ground-based characterization and the measured in-flight performance.

The Cerro­ Chajnantor Atacama Telescope prime (CCAT-p) Observatory is a wide­field, 6­ meter aperture submillimeter telescope. Prime-­Cam ­will be a powerful, first­ light camera for CCAT-p with imagers working at several wavelengths and a spectroscopic instrument aimed at intensity mapping during the epoch of reionization. We present the design of an instrument module in Prime­-Cam, operating at 350 microns — the shortest wavelength on the instrument, and the most novel for astronomical surveys, taking full advantage of the atmospheric transparency at the high 5600 meter CCAT-p siting on Cerro Chajnantor. This instrument module will provide unprecedented broadband intensity and polarization measurement capabilities to address pressing astrophysical questions regarding galaxy formation, Big Bang cosmology, and star formation within our own Galaxy. We present the overall optical and mechanical design for the module, and laboratory characterization of the 860-GHz KID array.

We are developing planar lenslet arrays for millimeter-wavelength imaging using metamaterials microlithically fabricated using silicon wafers. We describe the design process for a gradient-index (GRIN) metamaterial lenslet using metal-mesh patterned on silicon and a combination of metal-mesh and etched-hole metamaterial anti-reflection layers. We optimize the design using a bulk-material model to rapidly simulate and iterate on the lenslet design. We fabricated prototype GRIN metamaterial lenslet array and mounted it on a Polarbear/Simons Array 90/150 GHz band transition edge sensor (TES) bolometer detector array with sinuous planar antennas. Beam measurements of a prototype lenslet array agree reasonably well with the model simulations. We plan to further optimize the design and combine it with a broadband anti-reflection coating to achieve operation over 70–350 GHz bandwidth. Applications include measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and sub millimeter astrophysics.

The next generations of ground-based cosmic microwave background experiments will require polarisation sensitive, multichroic pixels of large focal planes comprising several thousand detectors operating at the photon noise limit. One approach to achieve this goal is to couple light from the telescope to a polarisation sensitive antenna structure connected to a superconducting diplexer network where the desired frequency bands are filtered before being fed to individual ultra-sensitive detectors such as Transition Edge Sensors. Traditionally, arrays constituted of horn antennas, planar phased antennas or anti-reflection coated micro-lenses have been placed in front of planar antenna structures to achieve the gain required to couple efficiently to the telescope optics. In this paper are presented the design concept and a preliminary analysis of the measured performances of a phase-engineered metamaterial flat-lenslet. The flat lens design is inherently matched to free space, avoiding the necessity of an anti-reflection coating layer. It can be fabricated lithographically, making scaling to large format arrays relatively simple. Furthermore, this technology is compatible with the fabrication process required for the production of large-format lumped element kinetic inductance detector arrays which have already demonstrated the required sensitivity along with multiplexing ratios of order 1000 detectors/channel.

The Mexico-UK Submillimetre Camera for Astronomy (MUSCAT) is the second-generation large-format continuum camera operating in the 1.1 mm band to be installed on the 50-m diameter Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) in Mexico. The focal plane of the instrument is made up of 1458 horn coupled lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKID) divided equally into six channels deposited on three silicon wafers. Here we present the preliminary results of the complete characterisation in the laboratory of the MUSCAT focal plane. Through the instrument's readout system, we perform frequency sweeps of the array to identify the resonance frequencies, and continuous timestream acquisitions to measure and characterise the intrinsic noise and 1/f knee of the detectors. Subsequently, with a re-imaging lens and a blackbody point source, the beams of every detector are mapped, obtaining a mean FWHM size of ~3.27 mm, close to the expected 3.1 mm. Then, by varying the intensity of a beam filling blackbody source, we measure the responsivity and noise power spectral density (PSD) for each detector under an optical load of 300 K, obtaining the noise equivalent power (NEP), with which we verify that the majority of the detectors are photon noise limited. Finally, using a Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), we measure the spectral response of the instrument, which indicate a bandwidth of 1.0-1.2 mm centred on 1.1 mm, as expected.

TolTEC is a 3-band millimeter-wave imaging polarimeter scheduled for deployment to the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) in January 2020. TolTEC consists of three, kilopixel-scale, monolithic arrays of microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs), together comprising over 7,000 polarization sensitive detectors. Here we describe many of the unique aspects of the TolTEC all-silicon focal plane design. We then present both laboratory and fully integrated in-receiver measurements in the lab with which we characterize the optical, resonator, and noise properties of the arrays.

Microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) operate through means of a superconducting resonator that changes resonant frequency and quality factor when incident photons are absorbed in the superconducting material. Incident power on MKIDs is determined by reading out the phase and amplitude of a tone injected into each detector. However, if the incident power on an MKID changes too drastically and the resonant frequency moves too far from the probe tone, amplitude information becomes useless and the detector is effectively out of commission until a VNA sweep is used to relocate resonances. Here we present the designs and preliminary results of a tone-tracking firmware that uses phase information to maintain an on-resonance probe tone at all times, removing the need for time-intensive VNA sweeps during observations and effectively maximizing the dynamic range of MKIDs. We will conclude with a discussion on future NASA missions that hope implement this tone-tracking design.

Far infra-red, mm and sub-mm astronomy requires very large arrays of detectors for future wide field cameras and spectrometers. We present an array of lens-antenna coupled Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKID) for a wide field camera at 350 GHz. We discuss the optimization to maximize the usable detector yield and matching the array to the readout to enable array performance close to the background limit. We overview the optical characterization techniques required to have confidence in the instrument performance prior to on telescope integration, finally giving measured optical performance for an optimized array.

DESHIMA 2.0 is a broadband sub-mm wave superconducting on-chip spectrometer for astronomy, targeting an instantaneous octave bandwidth (220 - 440 GHz) sampled with moderate spectral resolution channels (f/df ~ 500). In this work we propose a microstrip filter-bank implementation for DESHIMA 2.0 based on “H-shaped” resonators. These bandpass filters are free from spurious resonances over an octave bandwidth, do not suffer from radiation losses and can be arrayed in large filter-banks thanks to their extremely low reflections off-resonance. The design has been aided by an analytical circuit model that can fast and reliably predict the filter-bank behaviour. Prototype chips have been characterised in terms of frequency response and coupling efficiency.

HIRMES, SOFIA’s third generation science instrument, delivers spectroscopy at wavelengths between 25 and 122 um and resolving powers (RP) between 600 and 100,000. The detectors arrays are background-limited transition edge sensed bolometers. Here we focus on the development, testing, and performance of the series of 8 tunable cryogenic scanning Fabry-Perot interferometers (FPI) that deliver the imaging (RP = 2000), and the long-slit medium resolution (RP = 10,000) and high resolution (RP = 100,000) spectroscopic modes. The FPIs use free-standing metal meshes mirrors, flexible parallelogram translations stages, PZTs and/or cryomoters for displacement. and capacitive sensors for displacement measure.

TIME is an instrument being developed to study emission from faint objects in our universe using line intensity mapping (LIM) to understand the universe over cosmic time. The TIME instrument is a mm-wavelength grating spectrometer with Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers measuring in the frequency range of 200-300 GHz with 60 spectral pixels and 16 spatial pixels. TIME will measure [CII] emission from redshift 5 to 9 to probe the evolution of our universe during the epoch of reionization. TIME will also measure low-redshift CO fluctuations and map molecular gas in the epoch of peak cosmic star formation from redshift 0.5 to 2. This instrument and the emerging technique of LIM will provide complementary measurements to typical galaxy surveys and illuminate the history of our universe.  TIME was recently installed on the 12m ALMA prototype antenna operated by the Arizona Radio Observatory on Kitt Peak for an engineering test and will return for science observations in 2020.

This work describes the optical design of the EXperiment for Cryogenic Large-Aperture Intensity Mapping (EXCLAIM). EXCLAIM is a balloon-borne telescope that will measure integrated line emission from carbon monoxide (CO) at redshifts z<1 and ionized carbon ([CII]) at redshifts z = 2.5-3.5 to probe star formation over cosmic time in cross-correlation with galaxy redshift surveys. The EXCLAIM instrument will observe at frequencies of 420--540 GHz using six microfabricated silicon integrated spectrometers with spectral resolving power R = 512 coupled to kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs). A completely cryogenic telescope cooled to a temperature below 5 K provides low-background observations between narrow atmospheric lines in the stratosphere. Off-axis reflective optics use a 90-cm primary mirror to provide 4.2' full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) resolution at the center of the EXCLAIM band over a field of view of 22.5'.

The B-BOP instrument for the SPICA mission will use a brand new generation of submillimeter bolometers. An ultra-low background testbed for these bolometers has been developed for phase A of ESA. Inside the test cryostat lies a submillimeter light source designed to emit different flux, each of them with the same spectrum, at high temperature. To make sure the light arriving on the bolometers is faint, we use an inversed telescope to dilute the light. This allowed us to perform the first measurements on bolometer arrays produced by CEA-Leti.

The ability to measure both optical efficiency and dynamic response to changes in optical signal is crucial to the development of Transition Edge Sensors (TESs) for far-infrared astronomical instruments. We have devised and implemented a cryogenic test facility for ultra-low-noise far-infrared TESs, designed for the SAFARI grating spectrometer on the cooled-aperture space telescope SPICA. Whilst our experimental arrangement is suitable for the whole of the SAFARI wavelength range, 34-230 μm, we focus here on representative optical measurements at 60-110 μm. Detectors are illuminated with a few-mode beam having modal characteristics identical to those of an ideal imaging telescope. In addition, a fast thermal infrared source allows direct measurement of the TES response to tiny changes in incident optical power. We describe the measured functional forms of TES transient responses both to fast optical pulses and to modulation of the power dissipated in the bilayer, in the presence of background optical loading through to TES saturation.

The continued improvement in the sensitivity of superconducting far-infrared bolometers necessitates improved designs of cryogenically cooled broadband spectrometers in order to fully exploit the potential of such detectors. While Fourier transform spectrometers (FTS) have an illustrious history in astronomical research, the sensitivity of state-of-the-art detectors is such that the multiplex disadvantage of FTS is prohibitive unless the spectral bandpass can be restricted to less than 1%. One method of achieving this goal, and the one that has been adopted for the SPICA SAFARI instrument, is to use a diffraction grating as the post-dispersing component. Unlike a typical FTS, in which a single detector simultaneously measures a broad spectral band, a post-dispersed detection system requires multiple detectors, each with their own unique spectral, spatial, and temporal responses. Moreover, the narrow spectral band viewed by each detector results in an interferogram having a large coherence length; the signal is heavily modulated, yet truncated. While simulations play a useful role in modeling instrumental performance, there is no substitute for data obtained from a real implementation of an instrument concept. In this paper we describe the development and current status of a cryogenic, far-infrared, postdispersed, polarizing FTS (PDPFTS): a demonstrator for the SPICA SAFARI instrument.

The integrated superconducting spectrometer (ISS) enables ultra-wideband, large field-of-view integral-field-spectrometer designs for mm-submm wave astronomy. DESHIMA 2.0 is a single-pixel ISS spectrometer for the ASTE 10-m telescope, designed to observe the 220-440 GHz band in a single shot, corresponding to a [CII] redshift range of z=3.3-7.6. The first-light experiment of DESHIMA, using a 332-377 GHz configuration has shown excellent consistency between the performance derived from on-sky measurements, lab-measurements and the design. Ongoing upgrades towards the octave-bandwidth full system include the development of a filterbank chip with ~350 channels and higher optical efficiency, a wideband quasioptical design, and observing methods for efficiently removing the atmosphere.

The EXperiment for Cryogenic Large-aperture Intensity Mapping (EXCLAIM) is a cryogenic balloon-borne instrument that will map carbon monoxide and singly-ionized carbon emission lines across redshifts from 0 to 3.5, using an intensity mapping approach. EXCLAIM will broaden our understanding of these elemental and molecular gases, and the role they play in star formation processes across cosmic time scales. The focal plane of EXCLAIM's cryogenic telescope features six μ-Spec spectrometers. μ-Spec is a compact, integrated grating-analog spectrometer, which uses meandered superconducting niobium microstrip transmission lines on a single-crystal silicon dielectric to synthesize the grating. It features superconducting aluminum microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs), also in a microstrip architecture. The spectrometers for EXCLAIM couple to the telescope optics via a hybrid planar antenna coupled to a silicon lenslet. The spectrometers operate from 420{540 GHz with a resolving power R = λ/Δλ = 512, and employ an array of 355 MKIDs on each spectrometer. The spectrometer design targets a noise equivalent power (NEP) of 2 x 10^-18 W√ Hz (defined at the input to the main lobe of the spectrometer lenslet beam, within a 9° half width), enabled by the cryogenic telescope environment, the sensitive MKID detectors, and the low dielectric loss of single-crystal silicon. We report on these spectrometers under development for EXCLAIM, providing an overview of the spectrometer and component designs, the spectrometer fabrication process, fabrication developments since previous prototype demonstrations, and the current status of their development for the EXCLAIM mission.

We present a conceptual study of a large format imaging spectrograph for next-generation large (50-m class) single-dish telescopes, i.e., the Large Submillimeter Telescope (LST) and Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST). Recent discoveries of high-redshift star-forming galaxies at z=8-9 and candidate quiescent galaxies at z~6 indicate the onset of earliest star formation just a few 100 million years after the Big Bang (i.e., z = 12 - 15), and LST/AtLAST will provide a unique pathway to uncover spectroscopically-identified ``first forming galaxies’’ in the pre-reionization era, once it will be equipped with a large format imaging spectrograph. We describe the preliminary of 3-band, medium resolution (R=2000) imaging spectrograph with ~1.5 M detectors in total based on the KATANA concept (Karatsu et al.~2019), which exploits technologies of the integrated superconducting spectrometer (ISS) and a large-format imaging array like A-MKID.

NAOJ have studied wideband receiver technologies at submillimeter wavelengths toward implementation as future upgrades into the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope. We have developed critical components and devices such as waveguide components and superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixers targeting radio frequencies (RF) in the 275-500 GHz range and an intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth of 3-22 GHz. Based on the developed components, quantum-limited low-noise performance has been demonstrated by using a double-sideband receiver frontend in combination with a high-speed digitizer. In addition, a preliminary demonstration of a wideband RF/IF sideband-separating SIS mixer was performed. This paper describes the status of our efforts to develop technology toward wideband receivers for ALMA.

We are investigating a possible microwave amplifier with low noise and low power consumption at cryogenic temperature for large scale multi-pixel heterodyne superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) receivers at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. We propose the use of SIS junctions as amplifier elements based on quasi-particle mixing. By connecting an SIS up-converter and an SIS down-converter in series with gain in both converters, a lownoise and low-power-consumption high-frequency amplifier can be obtained in principle. A proof-of-concept study has been made by configuring an amplifier with two Nb/Al-AlOx/Nb mixers in the 150-GHz band in a standard noise and gain measurement setup at 4 K with a microwave noise source as an input signal. We observed a maximum gain of more than 10 dB and a minimum noise temperature of less than 10 K, which suggests that our proposed SIS amplifier is capable for multi-pixel SIS receivers. On the other hand, we also observed a periodical behavior in frequency dependence of the measured noise temperature and gain due to a standing-wave effect between the two SIS mixers, which is a problem to be solved.

Generating multiple local oscillator beams is one challenge to develop large heterodyne receiver arrays (~100 pixels), which allow astronomical instrumentations mapping more area within limited space mission lifetime. Here, We combine a reflective Fourier grating with an unidirectional antenna coupled 3rd-order distributed feedback (DFB) quantum cascade laser (QCL) to generate 81 beams at 3.86 THz. We have measured the beam pattern of the diffracted 81 beams, which agrees well with a simulated result from COMSOL Multiphysics with respect to the angular distribution and power distribution among the 81 beams. The diffraction efficiency of the Fourier grating is derived to be 94±3%, which is very close to the simulated result of 97%. For an array of equal superconducting hot electron bolometer mixers, 64 out of 81 beams can pump the HEB mixers with similar power, resulting in receiver sensitivities within 10%. Such a combination of a Fourier grating and a QCL can create an LO with 100 beams or more, enabling a new generation of large heterodyne arrays for astronomical instrumentation. This paper is essentially a copy of our paper in Optics Express.

The Tenerife Microwave Spectrometer (TMS) is a new 10-20 GHz experiment that will be installed at the Teide Observatory (Tenerife, Spain), next to the QUIJOTE CMB experiment. The main TMS scientific driver is to accurately measure absolute distortions of the sky spectrum in the 10-20 GHz frequency range, with special emphasis on the characterization of the absolute synchrotron monopole from our Galaxy, and the possible deviations of the CMB spectrum from a pure blackbody law. TMS will provide an absolute calibration for the QUIJOTE experiment, and it will also serve as a prototype for future instruments of its type, both ground-based and satellites. Among its new instrumental design is an octave bandwidth high quality cryogenic front-end, a thermally stabilized cold black body and a new design of wide-band Fourier transform spectrometer. The spectrometer will have a resolution of 250 MHz, giving 40 spectrally stable sub-bands.

The third generation South Pole Telescope camera (SPT-3G) improves over its predecessor (SPTpol) by an order of magnitude increase in detector number. The technology used to read out and control these detectors, digital frequency-domain multiplexing (DfMUX), is conceptually the same as used for SPTpol, but extended to accommodate more detectors. A nearly 5x expansion in the readout operating bandwidth has enabled the use of this large focal plane, and SPT-3G performance meets the forecasting targets relevant to its science objectives. However, the electrical dynamics of the higher-bandwidth system depart in significant ways from the characterization and models drawn from the previous generation of cameras. We present an updated derivation for electrical crosstalk in higher-bandwidth DfMUX systems, and identify two previously uncharacterized contributions to readout noise. The updated crosstalk and noise models successfully describe the measured crosstalk and readout noise performance of SPT-3G, and suggest improvements to the readout system for future experiments using DfMUX, such as the LiteBIRD satellite.

The SAFARI instrument is a spectrometer on board SPICA, using ~4000 TES bolometers with an unprecedented sensitivity. We are currently optimizing an FDM readout prototype for SAFARI, which is capable of reading out 160 pixels with the bias frequency range 1-4 MHz and 16 kHz spacing. We present our latest results with emphasis on the noise and cross-talk performance of this system. The measured readout noise is discussed in various configurations. We also present a method for mapping out the electrical cross-talk between the pixels in the array and elaborate on the measured data and analysis.

Kinetic inductance traveling-wave parametric amplifiers (KITs) are under development for the read out of large cryogenic detector arrays. We present new KIT designs based on 20nm NbTiN films patterned by use of standard optical photolithography. We report device gain, bandwidth, and noise properties, which approach the quantum limit. In addition, we demonstrate a KIT preamplifier with a microwave SQUID multiplexer. The improved input referred current noise, as compared to standard HEMT readout, opens up new possibilities for cryogenic receivers. We discuss these benefits.

LiteBIRD has been selected as JAXA’s strategic large mission in the 2020s, to observe the cosmic microwave background (CMB) B-mode polarization over the full sky at large angular scales. The challenges of LiteBIRD are the wide field-of-view (FoV) and broadband capabilities of millimeter-wave polarization measurements, which are derived from the system requirements. The possible paths of stray light increase with a wider FoV and the far sidelobe knowledge of -56 dB is a challenging optical requirement. A crossed-Dragone configuration was chosen for the low frequency telescope (LFT : 34–161 GHz), one of LiteBIRD’s onboard telescopes. It has a wide field-of-view (18° x 9°) with an aperture of 400 mm in diameter, corresponding to an angular resolution of about 30 arcminutes around 100 GHz. The focal ratio f/3.0 and the crossing angle of the optical axes of 90◦ are chosen after an extensive study of the stray light. The primary and secondary reflectors have rectangular shapes with serrations to reduce the diffraction pattern from the edges of the mirrors. The reflectors and structure are made of aluminum to proportionally contract from warm down to the operating temperature at 5 K. A 1/4 scaled model of the LFT has been developed to validate the wide field-of-view design and to demonstrate the reduced far sidelobes. A polarization modulation unit (PMU), realized with a half-wave plate (HWP) is placed in front of the aperture stop, the entrance pupil of this system. A large focal plane with approximately 1000 AlMn TES detectors and frequency multiplexing SQUID amplifiers is cooled to 100 mK. The lens and sinuous antennas have broadband capability. Performance specifications of the LFT and an outline of the proposed verification plan are presented.

CMB-S4 is a planned ground-based experiment with scientific impacts reaching from transformative measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to a deep legacy millimeter-wavelength dataset covering a large fraction of the sky. To meet its ambitious goals, CMB-S4 plans to have small-aperture (0.55-meter) and large-aperture (6-meter) telescopes located both in the Atacama desert (to access a large fraction of are the sky) and at the South Pole (for targeted deep-field observations). A total of over 500,000 superconducting detectors will be distributed across these telescopes, enabling a necessary leap in sensitivity. In this talk, I will give an overview of CMB-S4. I will highlight some of its scientific opportunities as well as presenting the driving technical considerations and the current experimental design.

A detection of curl-type (B-mode) polarization of the primary CMB would be direct evidence for the inflationary paradigm of the origin of the Universe. The Bicep/Keck Array (BK) program targets the degree angular scales, where the power from primordial B-mode polarization is expected to peak, with ever-increasing sensitivity and has published the most stringent constraints on inflation to date. Bicep Array (BA) is the Stage-3 instrument of the BK program and will comprise four Bicep3-class receivers observing at 30/40, 95, 150 and 220/270 GHz with a combined 32,000+ detectors; such wide frequency coverage is necessary for control of the Galactic foregrounds, which also produce degree-scale B-mode signal. The 30/40 GHz receiver is designed to constrain the synchrotron foreground and has begun observing at the South Pole in early 2020. By the end of a 3-year observing campaign, the full Bicep Array instrument is projected to reach σ_r between 0.002 and 0.004, depending on foreground complexity and degree of removal of B-modes due to gravitational lensing (delensing). This paper presents an overview of the design, measured on-sky performance and calibration of the first BA receiver. We also give a preview of the added complexity in the time-domain multiplexed readout of the 7,776-detector 150 GHz receiver.

The Simons Observatory (SO) will observe the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The observatory consists of three 0.5m Small Aperture Telescopes (SATs) and one 6m Large Aperture Telescope (LAT), covering six frequency bands centering around 30, 40, 90, 150, 230, and 280 GHz. The SO observations will transform our understanding of our universe by characterizing the properties of the early universe, measuring the number of relativistic species and the mass of neutrinos, improving our understanding of galaxy evolution, and constraining the properties of cosmic reionization.¹ As a critical instrument, the Large Aperture Telescope Receiver (LATR) is designed to cool ~60,000 transition-edge sensors (TES)² to <100mK on a 1.7m diameter focal plane. The unprecedented scale of the LATR drives a complex design.^3-5 In this paper, We will first provide an overview of the LATR design. Integration and validation of the LATR design is discussed in detail, including mechanical strength, optical alignment, and cryogenic performance of the five cryogenic stages (80 K, 40 K, 4 K, 1 K, and 100 mK). We will also discuss the microwave- multiplexing (μMux) readout system implemented in the LATR and demonstrate operation of dark, prototype TES bolometers. The μMux readout technology enables one coaxial loop to read out Ο(10³) TES detectors. Its implementation within the LATR serves as a critical validation for the complex RF chain design. The successful validation of the LATR performance is not only a critical milestone within the Simons Observatory, it also provides a valuable reference for other experiments, e.g. CCAT-prime⁶ and CMB-S4.^{7, 8}

Broadband radiometers at 30 and 40 GHz for QUIJOTE radio astronomy experiment are very sensitive receivers to perform scientific sky observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The aim of this experiment is the linear polarization percentage measurement of the received signals. Radiometers have cryogenically cooled Front-End Modules followed by room temperature amplification, correlation and detection modules. Their relative bandwidth is around 30%. There are 30 receivers (pixels) at 30 GHz and 29 receivers at 40 GHz. The radiometer scheme is based on two balanced branches, microwave correlation and direct detection. The manufactured receivers measure Stokes polarization parameters I, Q, and U simultaneously. This paper describes the principle of operation of polarimeter receivers, and present details of manufactured subsystems, integration and test results. Receivers integrate different technologies: waveguides, microstrip, Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMIC) and active and passive devices. The receivers are currently under installation in El Teide Observatory, Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain).

The Simons Observatory is a suite of instruments sensitive to temperature and polarization of the cosmic microwave background. Five telescopes will host over 60,000 highly multiplexed transition edge sensor (TES) detectors. The universal focal plane modules (UFMs) package multichroic TES detectors with microwave multiplexing electronics compatible with all five receivers. The low-frequency arrays are lenslet-coupled sinuous antennas sensitive to 30 and 40 GHz. The mid-frequency and ultra-high-frequency UFMs are horn-coupled orthomode transducer arrays sensitive to 90/150 GHz and 225/280 GHz, respectively. Here we present the design, assembly details, and initial results of the first UFM.

The Simons Observatory (SO) will be a CMB survey experiment with three small-aperture telescopes and one large-aperture telescope (the LAT), which will observe from the Atacama Desert in Chile. In total, SO will field over 60,000 TES bolometers in six spectral bands centered between 27 and 280 GHz. The 6 m LAT, targeting the smaller angular scales of the CMB, utilizes a cryogenic receiver (LATR) designed to house up to 13 individual optics tubes. The scientific objectives of the SO project requires these optics tubes to achieve high-throughput optical performance while maintaining exquisite control of systematic effects. We describe the integration and testing program for the LATR optics tubes being carried out to verify the design and assembly of the tubes before deployment. The program includes a quick turn-around single tube test cryostat. We discuss the optical design specifications the tubes for deployment and the suite of optical test equipment prepared for these measurements.

Sapphire, alumina, and silicon present the following characteristics that make them suitable as optical elements for millimeter and sub-millimeter applications: low-loss, high thermal conductivity at cryogenic temperatures, and high refractive index ~3. However, the high index also leads to high reflection. We developed a technique to machine sub-wavelength structures (SWS) as a broadband anti-reflection coating on these materials through laser ablation. We describe here the status of our development: transmission measurements of fabricated samples in a diameter of 34.5 mm agree with predictions, and we are now focusing on increasing the fabrication area with high processing rate. This is motivated by the need of ~500 mm diameter optical elements for the next-generation cosmic microwave background polarization experiments. We show our large area machining method on the alumina and sapphire over an area of < 5200 mm² with the processing rate of < 4:0 mm³=min:, and the transmission measurements are consistent with the predictions.

I will describe our development of a four kilopixel photometric imaging camera paired with a 1.5 meter crossed Dragone telescope. The focal plane is composed of aluminum kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) fabricated on crystalline silicon tiles. The tiles contain 960 KIDs and are approximately 100 mm x 100 mm in size. KID pairs, each sensitive to an orthogonal linear polarization, are coupled to a waveguide/feedhorn machined from aluminum. A single block, with 480 waveguides/feedhorns arranged in a hexagonal close-pack configuration, is paired with each detector tile. Initial tests with prototype KID tiles show the expected noise and optical performance. Full-scale tiles have now been fabricated with >90% yield, and are currently being characterized. The imager is intended for terrestrial applications, and an initial demonstration with the telescope is planned for early 2020. With relatively minor changes to the KID design, it could also be optimized for astronomical applications.

We demonstrate microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) whose sensitivity is limited by photon noise at 50 mHz signal frequencies. The sub-Hz part of the detection spectrum is important for millimeter-wave instruments, yet photon noise below 1 Hz in MKIDs has not previously been demonstrated unambiguously. Devices are feedhorn-coupled, direct-absorber-type and consist of lumped-element superconducting resonators fabricated from a hybrid of stoichiometric TiN, Al, and an amorphous-Si passivation layer. Viewing a 7K thermal load and a passband centered on 2mm, the device noise spectrum is white down to 50 mHz and has an amplitude consistent with photon noise. We will present these measurements and discuss the multiple design choices that lead to the result.

We present our design for antenna-coupled thermal kinetic inductance detectors (TKIDs) designed for Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations in the 150 GHz band. The next generation of telescopes studying the CMB will require large arrays of detectors on cryogenic focal planes to achieve high sensitivity at the cost of increased integration and readout complexity. TKIDs have demonstrated photon-limited noise performance comparable to traditional bolometers with a radiofrequency (RF) multiplexing architecture that enables the large detector counts needed. We characterize TKIDs fabricated for observing the CMB in a frequency band centered at 150 GHz and discuss the optical performance. These devices are a critical step towards fielding a Keck Array camera with 512 devices on the focal plane at the South Pole.

The CCAT-prime project's first light array will be deployed in Mod-Cam, a single-module testbed and first light cryostat, on the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) in Chile's high Atacama desert in late 2022. FYST is a six-meter aperture telescope being built on Cerro Chajnantor at an elevation of 5600 meters to observe at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths.¹ Mod-Cam will pave the way for Prime-Cam, the primary first generation instrument, which will house up to seven instrument modules to simultaneously observe the sky and study a diverse set of science goals from monitoring protostars to probing distant galaxy clusters and characterizing the cosmic microwave background (CMB). At least one feedhorn-coupled array of microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) centered on 280 GHz will be included in Mod-Cam at first light, with additional instrument modules to be deployed along with Prime-Cam in stages. The first 280 GHz detector array was fabricated by the Quantum Sensors Group at NIST in Boulder, CO and includes 3,456 polarization- sensitive MKIDs. Current mechanical designs allow for up to three hexagonal arrays to be placed in each single instrument module. We present details on this first light detector array, including mechanical designs and cold readout plans, as well as introducing Mod-Cam as both a testbed and predecessor to Prime-Cam.

We are developing ultra-low noise transition edge sensor (TES) bolometer arrays for the long-wavelength grating spectrometer modules of SAFARI, part of the cryogenically-cooled SPICA mission now in phase-A study in Europe.  These devices target a per-pixel noise equivalent power (NEP) below 10^-19 WHz^-1/2 with a time-constant faster than 10ms.  The SAFARI focal planes will be cooled to 50 mK, and we use a 100 mK thermistor formed from an annealed Titanium-Gold bilayer film.  To minimize excess heat capacity, we have developed a new wet-release process which provides high yield in large (~250-pixel) sub-arrays.  We will report on the fabrication, testing, and achieved performance of these detectors. We will also present the focal plane assembly designed to support the 5 (spatial) x 180 (spectral) format coupled to spectrometers thru multimodes horns.  The focal plane is composed of four monolithic sub-arrays with integrated backshorts, all integrated onto a large silicon substrate.

TIM, the Terahertz Intensity Mapper, is a NASA balloon mission designed to perform [CII] intensity mapping of the peak of cosmic star formation. To achieve this, TIM has two longslit (1 degree slit length) grating spectrometers covering the 240-317 um and 317-420 um wavelength bands at R~250, respectively. We will present the design of the ~4000 pixel, horn-coupled kinetic inductance detector arrays servicing each of the spectrometer arms. Each pixel is a lumped-element superconducting resonator made from a 20 nm thick aluminum film, designed to achieve photon noise limited performance at 100 fW of loading. The inductor is a meandered narrow wire, designed to mimic a metal mesh grid at THz frequencies; it is optimized for absorption of both polarizations delivered by the circular waveguide. Each array will consist of four quadrants containing ~1000 pixels on a single microstrip readout line and will be mounted such that critical parameters of the absorber design are maintained.

Future space-based observatories for the far infrared and sub-mm wave radiation, such as SPICA and the OST telescope, will need ultra-sensitive background limited detectors at frequencies above 1THz. We present a leaky-lens antenna design, composed of a leaky slot fed by a coplanar wave guide, which can be used to couple the absorbed power to a Kinetic Inductance Detector. The slot is coupled to a dielectric lens to achieve directive patterns with a high aperture efficiency. This antenna provides with a frequency coverage over an octave, and can be easily scaled up to 10THz using e-beam lithography.

MUSCAT is a second-generation continuum camera for the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) "Alfonso Serrano", to observe at the 1.1 mm atmospheric window. The camera has 1500 background-limited, horn-coupled lumped- element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) split across six arrays operating at 130-mK. The detector design for MUSCAT is based on a large-volume, double-meander geometry used as the inductive and two-polarization absorbing section of the LEKID resonator. In this paper we present the optical coupling of the meander to a choked waveguide output, the microwave design of the LEKID architecture, the device fabrication process and results demonstrating the detector sensitivity under a range of optical loads. Also presented are the performance of an aluminum absorbing layer used to minimize the optical cross-talk between detectors.

Digital Frequency Domain Multiplexing (DfMux) is a method of biasing and reading out many TES bolometers using superconducting MHz resonators and a SQUID amplifier. DfMux was recently deployed in two Cosmic Microwave Background receivers and is an alternative and baseline readout technology for CMB-S4 and LiteBIRD, respectively. The next generation of DfMux puts the SQUID,TES bias element, and resonators onto a common carrier at 100 mK in order to relax requirements on cryogenic wiring and allow for an increased multiplexing factor and improved TES performance. Characterization of a prototype system that is compatible with the POLARBEAR-2 receivers is presented.

We describe the development of a reconfigurable frequency multiplexed readout system for superconducting arrays. This system is an upgrade to the ROACH2 based readout system we have developed for a number of balloon-borne and ground-based instruments including BLAST-TNG, OLIMPO, MUSCAT, Superspec and TolTEC. Specifically our development has targeted the RFSoC ZCU111 evaluation board of which the size, weight, power, and instantaneous bandwidth have made it an attractive candidate for future balloon-borne or space-based astronomical instruments. Applications for the new readout system focus primarily on: frequency multiplexed superconducting nanowires single-photon detectors, Kinetic inductance detectors, Transition Edge Sensors, and Quantum Capacitance detectors. We will discuss the overlapping readout requirements that drive the general firmware architecture. Preliminary measurements with the new readout system using different detector technologies will also be presented.

A substantial amount of important scientific information is contained within astronomical data at the submillimeter and far-infrared (FIR) wavelengths, including information regarding dusty galaxies, galaxy clusters, and star-forming regions; however, these wavelengths are among the least-explored fields in astronomy because of the technological difficulties involved in such research. Over the past 20 years, considerable efforts have been devoted to developing submillimeter- and millimeter-wavelength astronomical instruments and telescopes. The number of detectors is an important property of such instruments and is the subject of the current study. Future telescopes will require as many as hundreds of thousands of detectors to meet the necessary requirements in terms of the field of view, scan speed, and resolution. A large pixel count is one benefit of the development of multiplexable detectors that use kinetic inductance detector (KID) technology. This paper presents the development of all aspects of the readout electronics for a KID-based instrument, which enabled one of the largest detector counts achieved to date in submillimeter-/millimeter-wavelength imaging arrays: a total of 2304 detectors. The work presented in this paper had been implemented in the MUltiwave- length Submillimeter Inductance Camera (MUSIC), a instrument for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) during 2013 and 2015.

The Simons Array is a set of three millimeter-wavelength telescopes in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. It is designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background caused by density perturbations, gravitational lensing, and primordial gravitational waves. Polarbear-2b (PB-2b) is the receiver that will be mounted onto the Paul Simons Telescope, the second Simons Array telescope. Each pixel in the PB-2b focal plane has a broadband sinuous antenna coupled to transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers. In all, there are more than 7,500 antenna-coupled TES bolometers which are biased and read out using a digital frequency-domain multiplexing framework. We implement a multiplexing factor of 40 with resonator frequencies ranging from 1.6 MHz to 4.6 MHz. These resonators are connected to superconducting quantum interference device arrays that provide a signal amplification stage. We present Polarbear-2b detector and readout characterization results from in-lab testing that enabled the deployment of PB-2b to Chile in March 2020.

We report on the development of commercially fabricated multi-chroic antenna coupled Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometer arrays for Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarimetry experiments. The orders of magnitude increase in detector count for next generation CMB experiments require a new approach in detector wafer production to increase fabrication throughput. We describe collaborative efforts with a commercial superconductor electronics fabrication facility (SeeQC Inc.) to fabricate detector arrays for CMB application. We have successfully fabricated dual-polarization, dichroic sinuous antenna-coupled TES detector arrays on 150 mm diameter wafers. We report on our recent progress on process optimization to achieve target detector performance such as superconducting transition temperature of a sensor, impedance of sensors, band pass placement, and optical efficiency. We will also report on development of orthomode transducer coupled horn detector fabrication at SeeQC Inc.

The Simons Observatory (SO) will perform ground-based observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with several small and large aperture telescopes, each outfitted with thousands to tens of thousands of superconducting aluminum manganese (AlMn) transition-edge sensor bolometers (TESs). In-situ characterization of TES responsivities and effective time constants will be required multiple times each observing-day for calibrating time-streams during CMB map-making. Effective time constants are typically estimated in the field by briefly applying small amplitude square-waves on top of the TES DC biases, and fitting exponential decays in the bolometer response. These so-called “bias step" measurements can be rapidly implemented across entire arrays and therefore are attractive because they take up little observing time. However, individual detector complex impedance measurements, while too slow to implement during observations, can provide a fuller picture of the TES model and a better understanding of its temporal response. Here, we present the results of dark TES characterization of many prototype SO bolometers and compare the effective thermal time constants measured via bias steps to those derived from complex impedance data.

Cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments utilize arrays of low temperature detectors, such as superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers. Voltage-biased TES bolometers must be embedded in a readout circuit that allows for stable operation. To ensure stability and to test our physical and electrothermal model of these devices, measurements aimed at characterizing the dynamics of the sensor over the range of detector bias and loading conditions relevant to our application are carried out for multiple bolometer designs. In this work, we present bolometer electrothermal properties derived from current-voltage curves, effective electrothermal time constant measurements, and complex impedance measurements of AlMn TES bolometers intended for the Ali CMB Polarization Telescope (AliCPT). All bolometers consist of 385nm thick 1400 ppma AlMn film with measured superconducting critical temperature T_c = 480 mK. The bolometers are well-described by a simple, one-pole electrothermal model with a natural time constant τ₀ that we adjust by varying the leg geometry and the amount of PdAu thermal ballast on the bolometer island. From these measurements, we determine that the volumetric heat capacity of sputtered PdAu (atomic percentages 67.6%/32.4%) at 480mK is 0.22 fJ/(K·μm³). Finally, we present the TES parameters as a function of operational resistance and over a range of loading conditions.

The BICEP3 CMB Polarimeter is a small-aperture refracting telescope located at the South Pole and is specifically designed to search for the possible signature of inflationary gravitational waves in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The experiment measures polarization on the sky by differencing the signal of co-located, orthogonally polarized antennas coupled to Transition Edge Sensor (TES) detectors. We present precise measurements of the absolute polarization response angles and polarization efficiencies for nearly all of BICEP3's ~800 functioning polarization-sensitive detector pairs from calibration data taken in January 2018. Using a Rotating Polarized Source (RPS), we mapped polarization response for each detector over a full 360 degrees of source rotation and at multiple telescope boresight rotations from which per-pair polarization properties were estimated. In future work, these results will be used to constrain signals predicted by exotic physical models such as Cosmic Birefringence.

The Q and U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) Technical Demonstrator (TD) aiming to shows the feasibility of the combination of interferometry and bolometric detection. The electronic readout system is based on an array of 128 NbSi Transition Edge Sensors cooled at 350mK readout with 128 SQUIDs at 1K controlled and amplified by an Application Specific Integrated Circuit at 40K. This readout design allows a 128:1 Time Domain Multiplexing. We report the design and the performance of the detection chain in this paper. The technological demonstrator unwent a campaign of test in the lab. Evaluation of the QUBIC bolometers and readout electronics includes the measurement of I-V curves, time constant and the Noise Equivalent Power. Currently the mean Noise Equivalent Power is ~ 2 x 10^-16W= p √Hz

The Simons Array upgrades the POLARBEAR experiment, which measures the cosmic microwave background from the Atacama Desert in Chile, with three newly developed receivers. Each receiver has 7,588 transition-edge sensor bolometers with a raw data rate of approximately 20 MB/s. This significantly increased data rate required us to develop a new data-acquisition (DAQ) and data-management system. As the network bandwidth from our observatory to our data-storage sites outside Chile is not high enough to send all the raw data, we compress the raw data on-site. The expected yearly compressed data rate is approximately 60 TB from each receiver. We have also developed a new housekeeping DAQ system. The new housekeeping DAQ system is a distributed system to handle the various newly added monitoring systems and to better understand our instruments and environments. Those data can also be fetched by another module for real-time monitoring of our instrument from all over the world with latencies on the order of minutes. We deployed the first receiver in late 2018 and started the commissioning of the DAQ system. The DAQ system has been working without significant problems and already accumulates a considerable amount of the new receiver data from the commissioning observations. In this presentation, we summarize and report the status of the new systems.

Publisher’s Note: This paper, originally published on 22 December 2020, was replaced with a corrected/revised version on 12 March 2021. If you downloaded the original PDF but are unable to access the revision, please contact SPIE Digital Library Customer Service for assistance.

AliCPT-1 is the first CMB degree scale polarimeter to be deployed to the Tibetan plateau at 5,250m asl. AliCPT-1 is a 95/150GHz 72cm aperture, two lens refracting telescope cooled down to 4K. Alumina lenses image the CMB on a 636mm wide focal plane. The modularized focal plane consists of dichroic polarization-sensitive Transition-Edge Sensors (TESes). Each module includes 1,704 optically active TESes fabricated on a 6in Silicon wafer. Each TES array is read out with a microwave multiplexing with a multiplexing factor up to 2,000. Such large factor has allowed to consider 10's of thousands of detectors in a practical way, enabling to design a receiver that can operate up to 19 TES arrays for a total of 32,300 TESes. AliCPT-1 leverages the technological advancements of AdvACT and BICEP-3. The cryostat receiver is currently under integration and testing. Here we present the AliCPT-1 receiver, underlying how the optimized design meets the experimental requirements.

Simons Array is a ground-based experiment at the Atacama Desert in Chile that observes polarization anisotropies on cosmic microwave background with more than 20,000 detectors sensitive to 90, 150, 220, and 270 GHz band. It is necessary to monitor the tropospheric clouds, which Rayleigh scatter the thermal radiation of the ground and produce polarized noise. We have tested two types of cloud monitoring methods using an infrared (8-14 μm) camera and an all-sky visible-light camera. We present the data from the cloud monitors at the site and development of the cloud detection algorithm using machine learning techniques.

The Simons Observatory (SO) is a cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey experiment with three small-aperture telescopes and one large-aperture telescope, which will observe from the Atacama Desert in Chile. In total, SO will field over 60,000 transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers in six spectral bands centered between 27 and 280 GHz in order to achieve the sensitivity necessary to measure or constrain numerous cosmological quantities, as outlined in The Simons Observatory Collaboration et al. (2019). To verify consistency of fabrication and performance in line with our sensitivity requirements, we will perform in-lab optical tests on isolated SO detectors as well as full detector arrays. The tests include beam measurements, bandpass measurements, and polarization measurements, among others. Here, we will describe the development of a cryogenic testbed that enables optical characterization of SO's detectors. We include the infrared filtering strategy to allow suitable cryogenic performance, design and implementation of the test equipment used in characterization, and the preliminary results from our validation of the testbed's cryo-optical performance.

BICEP3 is a 520 mm aperture on-axis refracting telescope at the South Pole, which observes the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at 95 GHz to search for the B-mode signal from inflationary gravitational waves. In addition to this main target, we have developed a low-elevation observation strategy to extend coverage of the Southern sky at the South Pole, where BICEP3 can quickly achieve degree-scale E-mode measurements over a large area. An interesting E-mode measurement is probing a potential polarization anomaly around the CMB Cold Spot. During the austral summer seasons of 2018-19 and 2019-20, BICEP3 observed the sky with a flat mirror to redirect the beams to various low elevation ranges. The preliminary data analysis shows degree-scale E-modes measured with high signal-to-noise ratio.

The Bicep/Keck Array experiment is a series of small-aperture refracting telescopes observing degree-scale Cosmic Microwave Background polarization from the South Pole in search of a primordial B-mode signature. As a pair differencing experiment, an important systematic that must be controlled is the differential beam response between the co-located, orthogonally polarized detectors. We use high-fidelity, in-situ measurements of the beam response to estimate the temperature-to-polarization (T → P) leakage in our latest data including observations from 2016 through 2018. This includes three years of Bicep3 observing at 95 GHz, and multifrequency data from Keck Array. Here we present band-averaged far-field beam maps, differential beam mismatch, and residual beam power (after filtering out the leading difference modes via deprojection) for these receivers. We show preliminary results of "beam map simulations," which use these beam maps to observe a simulated temperature (no Q/U) sky to estimate T → P leakage in our real data.

In this work we describe upgrades to the Spider balloon-borne telescope in preparation for its second flight, currently planned for December 2021. The Spider instrument is optimized to search for a primordial B-mode polarization signature in the cosmic microwave background at degree angular scales. During its first flight in 2015, Spider mapped ~10% of the sky at 95 and 150 GHz. The payload for the second Antarctic flight will incorporate three new 280 GHz receivers alongside three refurbished 95- and 150 GHz receivers from Spider's first flight. In this work we discuss the design and characterization of these new receivers, which employ over 1500 feedhorn-coupled transition-edge sensors. We describe pre-flight laboratory measurements of detector properties, and the optical performance of completed receivers. These receivers will map a wide area of the sky at 280 GHz, providing new information on polarized Galactic dust emission that will help to separate it from the cosmological signal.

QUBIC (a Q and U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology) is a next generation cosmology experiment designed to detect the B-mode polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). A B-mode detection is hard evidence of Inflation in the ΛCDM model. QUBIC aims to accomplish this by combining novel technologies to achieve the sensitivity required to detect the faint B-mode signal. QUBIC uses technologies such as a rotating half-wave plate, cryogenics, interferometric horns with self-calibration switches and transition edge sensor bolometers. A Technical Demonstrator (TD) is currently being calibrated in APC in Paris before observations in Argentina in 2021. As part of the calibration campaign, the spectral response of the TD is measured to test and validate QUBIC's spectro-imaging capability. This poster gives an overview of the methods used to measure the spectral response and a comparison of the instrument data with theoretical predictions and optical simulations.

The LiteBIRD satellite is planned to be launched by JAXA in the late 2020s. Its main purpose is to observe the large-scale B-mode polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anticipated from the Inflation theory. LiteBIRD will observe the sky for three years at the second Lagrangian point (L2) of the Sun-Earth system. Planck was the predecessor for observing the CMB at L2, and the onboard High Frequency Instrument (HFI) suffered contamination by glitches caused by the cosmic-ray (CR) hits. We consider the CR hits can also be a serious source of the systematic uncertainty for LiteBIRD. Thus, we have started a comprehensive end-to-end simulation study to assess impact of the CR hits for the LiteBIRD detectors. Here, we describe procedures to make maps and power spectra from the simulated time-ordered data, and present initial results. Our initial estimate is that ClBB by CR is ~ 2 ×10−6 μK2CMB in a one-year observation with 12 detectors assuming that the noise is 1 aW/ √ Hz for the differential mode of two detectors constituting a polarization pair.

*Doug.Henke@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Optical design study for an 850 GHz commissioning camera module for CCAT-prime Doug Henke*a, Doug Johnstonea,b, Lewis B.G. Kneea, Scott Chapmanc, Colin Rossc, Michel Fichd, Thomas Nikolae, Steve K. Choif, Michael D. Niemackf,g, Stephen C. Parshleyf, Gordon J. Staceyf, Eve Vavagiakisf aNRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7, Canada; bDept. of Physics and Astronomy, Univ. of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada; cDept. of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie Univ., Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada; dDept. of Physics and Astronomy, Univ. of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada; eCornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY 14853, USA; fDept. of Astronomy, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY 14853, USA; gDept. of Physics, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY 14853, USA ABSTRACT The CCAT-prime telescope, also known as the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST), has an unblocked 6-m aperture designed for an extraordinarily wide field-of-view to be used in cosmological and galactic studies. Located at 5600 m near ALMA, the site has extremely dry conditions which make it particularly suited for observations at shorter sub-mm wavelengths. These attributes make CCAT-prime a potential platform for the next generation “Stage IV” cosmic microwave background experiment to conduct cosmology surveys of the extragalactic sky. CCAT-prime is also ideal for polarization studies within the galaxy and time-domain observations of nearby protostars. Prime-Cam is the wide-field, first-light instrument for CCAT-prime which, when complete, will contain seven instrument modules, including cameras and spectrometers, spanning mm through sub-mm wavelengths. Not all receiver modules are currently funded—including the 350 mm (~850 GHz) camera module that motivates the extraordinary high site of CCAT-p. Recognizing that an 850 GHz commissioning camera may be needed within the next 1–2 years, an optical design study was initiated where we purposely chose to reduce the scope, cost, and complexity while still preserving diffraction-limited optics, allowing for early science until the more powerful wide field science-grade camera module replaced it. In order to minimize the cost and scope of an 850 GHz commissioning camera, the optics plan for reuse of existing detectors (ACT MBAC TES detectors or BLAST-TNG MKIDs) and interface with the existing instrument module cartridge planned for Prime-Cam. Further simplifications include restricting the field-of-view and utilizing on-axis HDPE lenses without an anti-reflection layer. Discussion of optimal detector array F-lambda scaling, analysis of power loading, and feed horn coupling efficiency is included.

Ground-based observatories across a wide range of wavelengths implement cryogenic cooling techniques to increase the sensitivity of cameras and enable low temperature receiver technologies. Commercial pulse tube cryocoolers (PTCs) are frequently used to provide 40 K and 4 K stages as thermal shells in cameras. However, PTC operation is dependent on gravity, giving rise to changes in cooling capacity over the operational tilt range of pointed telescopes. We present a study of the performance of a PTC designed to provide a cooling capacity of 2.0 W at 4.2 K and 55 W at 45 K (Cryomech PT420-RM) from 0 to 55 degrees away from vertical to probe capacity as a function of angle over a set of realistic thermal loading conditions. We also discuss the design implications for current and future cryogenic cameras.

Thanks to the first mm studies on the territory of the former USSR in the early 1960s and succeeding sub-mm measurements in the 1970s – early 1980s at wavelengths up to 0.34 mm, a completely unique astroclimate was revealed in the Eastern Pamirs, only slightly inferior to the available conditions on the Chajnantor plateau in Chile and Mauna Kea. Due to its high plateau altitude (4300 – 4500 m) surrounded from all sides by big (~7000 m) air-drying icy mountains and remoteness from oceans this area has the lowest relative humidity in the former USSR and extremely high atmospheric stability. In particular, direct measurements of precipitated water vapor in the winter months showed typical pwv=0.8 – 0.9 mm with sometimes of 0.27 mm. To validate previous studies and to compare them with results for other similar regions we performed opacity calculations at mm – sub-mm wavelengths for different sites in the Eastern Pamirs, Tibet, Indian Himalayas, APEX, ALMA, JCM, LMT and many others. To do this we integrate radiative transfer equations using the output of NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office model GEOS-FPIT for more than 12 years. We confirm previous conclusions about exceptionally good astroclimate in the Eastern Pamirs. Due to its geographical location, small infrastructure and the absence of any interference in radio and optical bands, this makes the Eastern Pamirs the best place in the Eastern Hemisphere for both optical and sub-mm astronomy.

Experiments to measure the polarization of the CMB require an exquisite characterization and control of optical systematics to achieve their scientific goals. Unfortunately, there are only very few natural polarized calibration sources, for which an artificial source becomes an appealing alternative. Here we present the development of a polarized calibration source that can be mounted on a drone to illuminate telescopes at a distance and away from the ground loading. We implemented a 150 GHz coherent source, with a single selectable linear polarization, fixed frequency and electronic chopper at 10 Hz. The source position is measured to better than 2 cm and 0.05 degrees using photogrammetry and a differential GPS. This source can be used to measure the polarized beam shape, relative and absolute polarization angles and map far sidelobes.

Microfabrication of on-chip filterbanks, such as DESHIMA 2.0, would greatly benefit from reliable fabrication with sub-micrometer resolution. This enables smaller devices and reduces scatter in parameters such as filter bandwidth and resonant frequency. Here we present “mix-and-match” processing by combining optical and electron-beam exposures of a single layer of negative ma-N1405 resist from Micro-Resist-Technology GmbH. This allows for minimal features down to 300 nm where needed and large structure exposure with UV, limiting e-beam writing time. Relative alignment is possible to less than 500 nm on a regular basis.

Superconducting resonators and transmission lines are fundamental building blocks of integrated circuits for millimeter-submillimeter astronomy. Accurate simulation of radiation loss from the circuit is crucial for the design of these circuits because radiation loss increases with frequency, and can thereby deteriorate the system performance. Here we show a stratification for a 2.5-dimensional method-of-moment simulator Sonnet EM that enables accurate simulations of the radiative resonant behavior of submillimeter-wave coplanar resonators and straight coplanar waveguides (CPWs). The Sonnet simulation agrees well with the measurement of the transmission through a coplanar resonant filter at 374.6 GHz. Our Sonnet stratification utilizes artificial lossy layers below the lossless substrate to absorb the radiation, and we use co-calibrated internal ports for de-embedding. With this type of stratification, Sonnet can be used to model superconducting millimeter-submillimeter wave circuits even when radiation loss is a potential concern.

We will present recent progress on a development of the Python module for Radio Interferometry Imaging with Sparse Modeling (PRIISM) and its application. PRISM is a new imaging tool for radio interferometry based on the sparse modeling approach. PRIISM is aimed at an imaging without subjectivity nor manual intervention as well as a platform to explore the super-resolution imaging. PRIISM integrates a solver routine with data manipulation tools provided by Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA). As a consequence of this integration, we successfully reconstructed images from the ALMA Science Verification Data. We will present a new imaging mode that is based on the Non-Uniform Fast Fourier Transformation (NUFFT) together with an existing imaging mode using Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT). We will also discuss about an optimization of the procedure depending on the property of the data.

Superconducting resonators used in millimeter-submillimeter astronomy would greatly benefit from deposited dielectrics with a small dielectric loss. We deposited hydrogenated amorphous silicon films using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition, at substrate temperatures of 100°C, 250°C and 350°C. The measured void volume fraction, hydrogen content, microstructure parameter, and bond-angle disorder are negatively correlated with the substrate temperature. All three films have a loss tangent below 10⁻⁵ for a resonator energy of 10⁵ photons, at 120 mK and 4–7 GHz. This makes these films promising for microwave kinetic inductance detectors and on-chip millimeter-submilimeter filters.

Seoul National University Radio Astronomy Observatory (SRAO), a 6-meter single-dish telescope recently applied new 100GHz and 230GHz dual-band receiver. The SRAO had been inactive for several years, but resumed operation by adapting the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) receiver. We succeeded in the single-dish observations in 2019 March. We upgraded the SRAO to the mm-VLBI station and participated in the test observation of East Asia VLBI Network (EAVN) with several telescopes worldwide. The simultaneous single dish and VLBI observation is possible. We are going to design the new receiver and import a wideband 230GHz mixer and have a VLBI observation with Korean VLBI Network (KVN). Also, we are planning to test the phase reference technique between 100Ghz and 230GHz.

We present three Monte Carlo models for the propagation of athermal phonons in the diamond absorber of a composite semiconducting bolometer ‘Bolo 184'. Previous measurements of the response of this bolometer to impacts by α particles show a strong dependence on the location of particle incidence, and the shape of the response function is determined by the propagation and thermalisation of athermal phonons. The specific mechanisms of athermal phonon propagation at this time were undetermined, and hence we have developed three models for probing this behaviour by attempting to reproduce the statistical features seen in the experimental data. The first two models assume a phonon thermalisation length determined by a mean free path λ, where the first model assumes that phonons thermalise at the borders of the disc (with a small λ) and the second assumes that they reflect (with a λ larger than the size of the disc). The third model allows athermal photons to propagate along their geometrical line of sight (similar to ray optics), gradually losing energy. We find that both the reflective model and the geometrical model reproduce the features seen in experimental data, whilst the model assuming phonon thermalisation at the disc border produces unrealistic results. There is no significant dependence on directionality of energy absorption in the geometrical model, and in the schema of this thin crystalline diamond, a reflective absorber law and a geometrical law both produce consistent results.

High angular resolution astronomical observation in terahertz frequencies better than one milli-arcsecond will open a new field of terahertz astronomy. We propose terahertz intensity interferometry for aperture synthesis imaging. Fast photon detectors in terahertz frequencies are the key technology. We work on low leakage SIS photon detectors, which will be capable to detect every photon arrival. Photo response of SIS photon detectors is presented and its application to terahertz intensity interferometry is discussed together with developments of readout electronics and cryogenics.

In this paper, we will discuss the design, optimization, and measured results of the lumped-element bandpass filter (BPF) network used for submillimeter and millimeter imaging. Careful calculations are required during the filter design process to achieve a filter response that meets our needs. Circuit and layout models are studied to represent the filter transfer function with a physical layout. The measured results exhibit good frequency response and strong agreement with the predicted results. The proposed BPF network was used as part of the multicolor superconducting microresonator imaging array for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO).

We present the initial design, performance improvements and science opportunities for an upgrade to the Field-Imaging Far-Infrared Line Spectrometer (FIFI-LS). FIFI-LS efficiently measures fine structure cooling lines, delivering critical constraints of the interstellar medium and starforming environments. SOFIA provides the only FIR observational capability in the world, making FIFI-LS a workhorse for FIR lines, combining optimal spectral resolution and a wide velocity range. Its continuous coverage from 51-203 microns makes FIFI-LS a versatile tool to investigate a multitude of diagnostic lines within our galaxy and in extragalactic environments. The sensitivity and field-of-view (FOV) of FIFI-LS are limited by its 90s-era photoconductor arrays. These limits can be overcome by upgrading the instrument using the latest developments in Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs). KIDs provide sensitivity gains in excess of 1.4 and allow larger arrays, enabling an increase in pixel count by an order of magnitude. This increase allows a wider FOV and instantaneous velocity coverage. The upgrade provides gains in point source observation speed by a factor <2 and in mapping speed by a factor <3.5, enabled by the improved sensitivity and pixel count. This upgrade has been proposed to NASA in response to the 2018 SOFIA Next Generation Instrumentation call.

SuperSpec is an integrated, on-chip spectrometer for millimeter and sub-millimeter astronomy. SuperSpec is demonstrating a proof-of-principle multi-beam spectrometer on the sky at the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) in Mexico covering the 200 - 300 GHz frequency range with moderate resolution (R ~ 270 - 290). The dual-polarization, three-pixel instrument will consist of 6 SuperSpec spectrometer chips. We present the design and characterization of the devices being used in the first SuperSpec demonstration along with lab testing of the instrument performance.

The high spectral resolution mode of the SpicA FAR-infrared Instrument (SAFARI) is enabled by inserting a Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), based on a Martin-Puplett interferometer, into the signal path of the instrument. The cryogenic mechanism (FTSM) enables linear scans of two back-to-back rooftop mirrors sharing a common apex. ABB Inc. is under contract with the Canadian Space Agency to develop and test at 4 K an FTSM Engineering Demonstration Unit (EDU) for TRL-5 demonstration. The main SAFARI FTSM performance drivers are the stringent mechatronic demands (position stability of roof-top mirrors <10 nm RMS, <34 mm linear stroke), severely constrained by a tight thermal budget (heat dissipation <1.5 mW) under a specific micro-vibrations environment (30 μg/√Hz external), all at cryogenic temperatures (4 K). In this paper, we describe a novel cryogenic FTSM design using a reactionless and longstroke flexure-based 4-bar linkage with stiffness compensation. This 1-DOF mechanism passively controls the guiding of the roof-top mirrors with flex pivots while the axial scanning is actuated and controlled with a custom moving magnet actuator (MMA). Static and dynamic balancing of the FTSM ensures that low vibration levels are transferred to/from the FTSM baseplate, and compensation of the mechanism stiffness reduces the force and drive current required from the MMA by a factor <10. Both features lead to MMA power consumption/dissipation <1.5 mW. Results from an engineering analysis of a dynamic model developed for the FTSM EDU are discussed to assess the compliance of this design to the challenging cryogenic SAFARI FTSM performance requirements.

Removing sky emission is essential to extract astronomical signals for submillimeter spectroscopy with ground-based single-dish telescopes, however, conventional switching methods not only cause baseline instability but result in low observing efficiency of on-source. Here we present two statistical approaches to efficient sky removal. For a heterodyne receiver, we develop an off-point-less observing method by a frequency-modulating local oscillator (FMLO; Taniguchi et al., PASJ, in press), which is three times more efficient than the conventional method. For an ultra-wideband spectrometer (DESHIMA; Endo et al. 2019a, 2019b), we develop a sky removal method applicable to continuum observations by using an atmospheric model.

A compact front-end system is presented for a dual-linear polarization cryogenic Q-band receiver. This receiver will be used to demonstrate the high frequency performance of the Dish Verification Antenna 2 (DVA-2) composite reflector telescope between 35–50 GHz and is a technology demonstrator with possible application to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA). A vacuum vessel and a two-stage Gifford-McMahon cryopump system are used for the cryogenic environment. The second stage of the cryostat is cooled to 16 K and includes a small choke ring feed horn, a low-loss noise calibration module (NCM) integrated with orthogonal mode transducer (OMT), and two cryogenically cooled mHEMT MMIC low-noise amplifiers (LNAs). Using a noise diode as the noise source on the 300 K stage inside the cryostat helps to protect the cooled components from signals outside of the cryostat, and also lessen the heat on the second stage since a noise diode normally produce a power dissipation of several hundred mW. The OMT design is an optimized version of the design used in the ALMA Band 1 cartridge with two integrated directional couplers and excellent performance. The cascaded noise analysis of the receiver shows a receiver noise temperature of 19.4 K.

The next technological breakthrough in millimeter-submillimeter astronomy is 3D imaging spectrometry with wide instantaneous spectral bandwidths and wide fields of view. The total optimization of the focal-plane instrument, the telescope, the observing strategy, and the signal-processing software must enable efficient removal of foreground emission from the Earth's atmosphere, which is time-dependent and highly nonlinear in frequency. Here we present TiEMPO : Time-dependent End-to-end Model for Post-process Optimization of the DESHIMA spectrometer. TiEMPO utilizes a dynamical model of the atmosphere and parametrized models of the astronomical source, the telescope, the instrument, and the detector. The output of TiEMPO is a timestream of sky brightness temperature and detected power, which can be analyzed by standard signal-processing software. We first compare TiEMPO simulations with an on-sky measurement by the wideband DESHIMA spectrometer, and find good agreement in the noise power spectral density and sensitivity. We then use TiEMPO to simulate the detection of the line emission spectrum of a high-redshift galaxy using the DESHIMA 2.0 spectrometer in development. The TiEMPO model is open source. Its modular and parametrized design enables users to adapt it to design and optimize the end-to-end performance of spectroscopic and photometric instruments on existing and future telescopes.

DESHIMA 2.0 is a sub-millimetre wave spectrometer based on a single superconducting chip with a large instantaneous bandwidth. The instrument consists of a Quasi-optical (QO) system and an on-chip filter-bank coupled to an array of Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KID). In this work, this broad band QO system, operating at sub-millimetre wavelengths (220 GHz to 720 GHz), will be presented. This design is achieved using a field matching technique and consists of a hyper-hemispherical leaky lens antenna coupled to a series of Dragonian reflectors. The optimized design has an average illumination efficiency over the band of ~70%. This performance is also measured directly through the response of the KIDs.

We present an on-chip superconducting filter bank spectrometer based on transition-edge sensors (TES) as a technology for realising a microwave atmospheric sounding instrument with several hundred channels and sky- noise limited performance. Each device consists of a wideband feed coupled to a transmission line filter bank, with a TES behind each filter. In the first instance we have targeted atmospheric temperature sounding using the oxygen (O₂) absorption line at 60 GHz, however the device is being scaled to 180 GHz for humidity sounding. The technology developed is also generally applicable to astronomical instrumentation. We have fabricated a set of test devices to demonstrate key device technologies, such as channel placement, spectral resolution and sensitivity. We will describe device design, test configuration and results.

DESHIMA 2.0 will be a wideband submillimeter (submm) spectrometer based on integrated NbTiN superconducting resonant filters and Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors. DESHIMA 2.0 covers an instantaneous frequency band from 220 to 440 GHz with a frequency resolution of F/dF = 500 to carry out spectroscopic redshift measurements of submm-bright galaxies (SMGs). For the absolute frequency calibration of DESHIMA 2.0, we have developed a gas-cell calibration system that can be used with methanol vapor or N2O gas. The system is designed not only for the frequency calibration, but also for long integration time tests that simulate observations of faint extra-galactic lines.

The optical modelling of far-infrared partially-coherent grating spectrometers has long been considered difficult, due to the multi-mode diffractive nature of the grating optics. However, for the next generation of far-infrared space missions the need for understanding the complex behaviour of these grating spectrometers has intensified. Conventional modelling techniques are difficult to apply because i) the field is partially coherent; ii) diffraction and focusing effects are crucially important; iii) diffraction integrals need to be sampled finely over large optical surfaces. We describe an effective approach based on propagating the correlation functions of the radiation field using the natural modes of the optical system. First, the transformation matrix of the system, T, is determined, which captures the natural modes of the optics. Next, the correlations functions are propagated through the optics using T. The result is a modal optics technique that captures all performance information, in terms of the spectral, spatial and coherence details, within a single framework. In the paper, we explain the foundations of the method and demonstrate its applicability based on a number of standard far-infrared optical systems. Our scheme is numerically powerful, and provides insights into the trade-offs needed to optimise performance. The analysis we will extended to partially coherent far-infrared grating spectrometers as a function of the incident spectral field compositions, scattering at the grating optics, and detector geometry to improve our understanding of such systems.

GUSTO (Galactic/ Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory) equipped with three 8-pixel detection channels at 1.4, 1.9, and 4.7 THz will perform the largest single-flight mapping of the important lines of nitrogen [NII], carbon [CII], oxygen [OI] respectively, within the Milky Way and Large Magellanic Cloud.. Whilst the cutting edge technologies are applied in the mixer and local oscillator (LO) components, their proper coupling is crucial. Here we present the design, manufacturing and measurement results of a phase grating for multiplexing a single beam from a quantum cascade laser to 8 beams as the LO at 4.7 THz. We experimentally confirmed that the grating meets all the requirements. This is the first time that such a complete characterization of a THz phase grating is being reported. This accomplishment paves the way for future larger array receivers to apply this component for such a critical function.

A new 790 – 940 GHz heterodyne receiver, ASTE Band 10, was installed in October 2019 on ASTE (Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment), a 10 m submillimeter telescope near of the ALMA site in Chile. An ALMA Band 10 prototype receiver was upgraded with SIS mixers employing high-Jc junctions. The receiver noise temperature (TDSB) measured in the laboratory is between 175 K and 344 K. The achieved system noise temperature on ASTE toward the zenith was 2400 K (PWV <1.0 mm). Their Allan variances were less than 2.0 x 10^-6 for timescales in the range of 0.05 sec < T <100 sec.

We have fabricated new superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixers chips for the 16-element Heterodyne Array Receiver Program (HARP) instrument on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). The original spare mixer chips were limited and not performed as well as the used ones in HARP. The ability to manufacture new mixer chips would therefore be important for the repair and upgrade of HARP. Our immediate goal is to replace the current nonfunctional mixers in HARP with new chips. We modified the designs of waveguide probe and the matching circuit of the SIS mixer chip. The newly designed chips were fabricated with a quality factor (Rsg/Rn) over 10. The double-sideband (DSB) receiver noise temperature (Trx) is lower than 80K at frequencies between 325 GHz and 375 GHz, which is comparable to the best of the original devices. Three of the sixteen mixers have been replaced and they work very well.

In recent years, NAOJ has contributed designs and production of waveguide and optics components for ALMA bands 1 (35-50 GHz) and 2 (67-116 GHz) receivers. This includes several novel ideas in the design of corrugated horns and OMTs and the application of 3D printing for the fabrication of key components of radio receivers. These frequency bands coincide approximately with bands 5 and 6 of ngVLA, the most promising project in the 2020s to exploit synergies with ALMA with the goal of increasing the scientific output of both facilities. This paper reports on the recent ALMA development results and discusses their future application to ngVLA.

Namakanui is an instrument containing three inserts in an ALMA type Dewar. The three inserts are ‘Ala’ihi, ‘U’ū and ‘Āweoweo operating around 86, 230 and 345GHz. The receiver is being commissioned on the JCMT. It will be used for both Single dish and VLBI observations. We will present commissioning results and the system.

A 345 GHz room-temperature single-pixel heterodyne receiver using sub-harmonic Schottky barrier diode mixers has been installed at the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) on the Sierra Negra in Mexico. The receiver was developed at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the UK in 2013 to perform ground-based atmospheric studies between 312 GHz and 360 GHz. With support from the STFC Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) project “Astronomical System Training, Engineering and Collaboration (ASTEC)” the instrument has been reconfigured to support astronomical research and installed on the 50-meter LMT to be used as a pathfinder for sub-millimeter wavelength observations. This new receiver, CHARM (Collaborative Heterodyne Astronomical Receiver for Mexico), has exchanged an originally implemented single-sideband mixer design for a double-sideband device. In addition, a broader bandwidth intermediate frequency (IF) chain, additional digital sampling spectrometers and appropriate interface quasi-optics have been installed. The modifications have resulted in a turnkey receiver system with a double sideband (DSB) receiver noise temperature (T_rec) of ~1200 K as measured in the laboratory. The inclusion of a wider IF and a total of four digital spectrometers the instrument encompasses a 12 GHz IF bandwidth with 1.46 MHz resolution. Use of Schottky mixers allows room temperature operation and whilst both of these attributes sacrifice noise performance, and thus detection sensitivity, when compared with cryogenic superconducting systems, they allow a relatively simple system architecture to be implemented that has objective of establishing the LMT sub-millimeter wave performance potential and related quality local atmospheric ‘seeing’ conditions. The detailed design of the instrument, description of the optical system for the LMT adaptation and first-light results are presented.

We describe the distributed control system that we are developing for the Wideband frontend receiver system for Submillimeter Array (wSMA). This distributed control system is based on an array of Raspberry-Pi (RPi) modules, which is embedded in each subsystem. The RPis run the Linux operating system and they are integrated with Input/Output (I/O) circuits which carry out the control and monitoring functions. The distributed architecture gives rise to a low-cost and yet versatile and powerful setup, which can be built up gradually by adding subsystems, one at a time. In this paper, we will present, in more details, two RPi-controlled subsystems: the Local oscillator (LO) module and the scanning spectrometer.

We installed a new Band10 receiver cartridge (790 − 940 GHz) on ASTE and carried out its Commissioning and Science Verification. We repeated observations toward IRC+10216 with HCN maser line (1110)-(0400), J=10-9, determined the cartridge-specific offsets of sub-reflector position and telescope pointing, and then, obtained beam patterns. The beam size was estimated to be 10.9″ × 10.0″ from the beam patterns. For science verification, we performed observations of an 8′ × 4′ area around Orion-KL of the Orion Molecular Cloud 1 region with CO (J=7-6) line in the on-the-fly method, verified that our images were consistent with past results, and confirmed the capability of ASTE Band10 observations toward bright and extended objects like Giant Molecular Clouds.

A compact 780–950 GHz sideband separating (2SB) superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer measuring 22 mm × 27 mm × 11 mm is designed in this study. In this mixer block, all components such as a radio frequency (RF) 90° hybrid coupler, a local oscillator (LO) power splitter, two LO couplers, two identical SIS chips, and an intermediate frequency (IF) 90° hybrid coupler are integrated. To minimize the waveguide length for the RF signal path, we separate the placement of the waveguide components into two layers in parallel. One layer contains the RF hybrid and LO couplers, and another layer contains the LO power splitter located above the RF hybrid coupler. They are connected by waveguides fabricated via wire electric discharge machining. We performed three-dimensional electromagnetic simulations and confirmed the results. Furthermore, a 4-12-GHz IF 90° hybrid coupler to combine the IF signals from each SIS chip is designed with an alumina substrate having a relatively high dielectric constant to be integrated in the mixer block. The preliminary test result of single sideband noise temperatures of the fabricated 2SB SIS mixer partly complied with the current Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) specifications without any loss correction in front of the receiver. Because the RF and LO interfaces of the mixer block are the same as that of the current ALMA band 10 mixer block, band 10 cartridges are expected to be upgraded to 2SB configurations without significant changes in optics.

We report the current status of the NASCO (NAnten2 Super CO survey as legacy) project which aims to provide all-sky CO data cube of southern hemisphere using the NANTEN2 4-m submillimeter telescope installed at the Atacama Desert through developing a new multi-beam receiver and a new telescope control system. The receiver consists of 5 beams. The four beams, located at the four corners of a square with the beam separation of 720′′, are installed with a 100 GHz band SIS receiver having 2-polarization sideband-separation filter. The other beam, located at the optical axis, is installed with a 200 GHz band SIS receiver having 2-polarization sideband-separation filter. The cooled component is modularized for each beam, and cooled mirrors are used. The IF bandwidths are 8 and 4 GHz for 100 and 200 GHz bands, respectively. Using XFFTS spectrometers with a bandwidth of 2 GHz, the lines of ¹²CO, ¹³CO, and C¹⁸O of J=1−0 or J=2−1 can be observed simultaneously for each beam. The control system is reconstructed on the ROS architecture, which is an open source framework for robot control, to enable a flexible observation mode and to handle a large amount of data. The framework is commonly used and maintained in a robotic field, and thereby reliability, flexibility, expandability, and efficiency in development are improved as compared with the system previously used. The receiver and control system are installed on the NANTEN2 telescope in December 2019, and its commissioning and science verification are on-going. We are planning to start science operation in early 2021.

The 50-meter Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) operating on the Sierra Negra in Mexico is the largest single- dish millimeter-wave telescope in the world. Although designed to work in the 3 mm and 1 mm bands, there is significant potential for LMT observations at centimeter wavelengths. Here, we summarize the scientific case and operational arguments for a K-band receiver system on the LMT, describe several of the unique technical challenges that the proposed installation would entail, and mention some possible solutions to these challenges.

The technology of 3D printing using a polymeric substrate and the fused deposition modeling (FDM) method, as a flexible method of creating a variety of parts, has the possibility of leading solutions in various fields of technology. The control of the surface quality achieved by its deposition on polished surfaces, such as glass, allows to bring the terminations of the exposed faces to values below 0.8 μm (N6). These qualities, obtained by printing on glass, in conjunction with the adaptation of the print head, allow for the manufacturing of flat concave or convex surfaces with excellent surface finish. Additionally, the electroless process described by Merino (2010) on NFC, which has been adapted for a PLA polymeric substrate, has permitted the deposition of a layer of copper (Cu) on the substrate, creating a surface conducting for an electromagnetic signal. Combining these two methods it is possible to manufacture a horn type antenna (horn) such as shown in figure 1, which complies with the necessary geometry to be used for the reception of electromagnetic signals. The antenna will be used in radio astronomy for the frequency band between 10 GHz and 30 GHz, and will be put to the test, comparing its performance against a series antenna.

The ngVLA is a synthesis array of approximately 214 18-m antennas, and the antennas will be connected via a spoke-and-wheel connection arrangement and daisy-chain or some intermediate arrangement. These stations will be linked to the central timing system via long haul fiber optics. Repeater stations will be needed for reference signal regeneration for the most distant antenna stations. Otherwise, a large number of hydrogen masers will be required. An optical phase-locked oscillator (OPLO) can be realized at a remote repeater station that is synchronized with a transmitted reference signal from a reference station. We have been developing a wide-frequency range OPLO with an external modulation-type dual-wavelength generator that is capable of regenerating the dual-wavelength reference signal at a long-distance remote station. The remote station reference signal is thus coherent with the reference station and capable of tuning over a wide frequency range. At each antenna the reference is looped back to the central building where the measured round-trip phase is used for real-time /post-processing transmission phase compensation so that the LO signal to each antenna becomes coherent. This transmission phase stabilizer should detect the round-trip phase of each light-wave separately for chromatic dispersion compensation. We demonstrated the effectiveness of the OPLO with a post-processing-scheme transmission phase stabilizer. In this method, the OPLO’s phase-locked loop controls the microwave frequency of the voltage-controlled oscillator, not the optical frequency of the tunable laser. Thus, a wide-bandwidth PLL is not required.

The preliminary design and system simulation of an 18 - 45 GHz radio astronomy receiver is presented, planned for installation on the 26 m radio telescope at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory in South Africa. The receiver utilizes a sideband separating architecture with two local oscillator settings to cover the full frequency range. The receiver will deliver a 4-11 GHz output IF for each sideband. An analysis of the frequency plan and simulated performance using off-the-shelf components and target custom design specifications are discussed. A discussion on multi-chip module (MCM) and full monolithic integration towards miniaturized packaged ultra- wideband receivers for radio astronomy is also given. System simulations show ultra-wideband operation using two LO settings with the largest spurious signal at -40 dBc relative to the fundamental and an average noise figure of 1.8 dB at room temperature within the IF band. The simulated results show a minimum image rejection between the sidebands of 12 dB at the band edge of the IF.

We are promoting the Hybrid Installation Project in Nobeyama, Triple-band Oriented (HINOTORI), a project aiming at triple-band simultaneous single-dish and VLBI observation in the 22-, 43- and 86-GHz bands using the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope. The triple-band simultaneous observation becomes possible by developing two perforated plates and mounting them in the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope optics. One is a 22/43-GHz-band perforated plate, which transmits the higher frequency (43-GHz) band and reflects the lower frequency (22-GHz) band, and the other is a 43/86-GHz-band perforated plate, which transmits the 86-GHz band and reflects the 43-GHz band or lower. Both plates are designed to be installed in the large telescope optics with a beam diameter as large as 50 cm and insertion/reflection losses are both 0.22 dB (5%) or less in the design. The receivers used in triple-band simultaneous observation system are the H22 and H40 receivers, which are already installed in the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope, and the TZ receiver, which is a 100-GHz-band receiver including the 86-GHz band and reinstalled in the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope. A system of simultaneous observations in the 22- and 43-GHz bands of the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope with the 22/43- GHz-band perforated plate has been completed and commissioned for scientific observations. Also VLBI fringes between the Nobeyama 45-m telescope with the dual-band observation system and the VERA 20-m telescopes at 22 and 43 GHz was detected successfully.

TolTEC is an imaging polarimeter that will be mounted on the 50m diameter Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) in Mexico. This camera simultaneously images the focal plane at three wavebands centered at 1.1, 1.4, and 2.0mm. TolTEC combines polarization-sensitive Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs) with the LMT to produce 5-10 arcmin resolution maps of the sky in both total intensity and polarization. The light from the telescope is coupled to the TolTEC instrument using three room temperature mirrors. Before entering the cryostat, the light passes through a rapid-spinning achromatic half-wave plate, and once inside it passes through a 1 K Lyot stop that controls the telescope illumination. Inside the cryostat, a series of aluminum mirrors, silicon lenses, and dichroic filters split the light into three wavelength bands and direct each band to a different detector array. We will describe the design, and performance of the optics before installation at the telescope.

Pancharatnam base achromatic half-wave plate (AHWP) achieves high polarization efficiency over broadband. It generally comes with a feature of which the optic axis of AHWP has dependence of the electromagnetic frequency of the incident radiation. When the AHWP is used to measure the incident polarized radiation with a finite detection bandwidth, this frequency dependence causes an uncertainty in the determination of the polarization angle due to the limited knowledge of a detection band shape and a source spectral shape. To mitigate this problem, we propose new designs of the AHWP that eliminate the frequency dependent optic axis over the bandwidth of which the polarization efficiency also achieves the same broadband width. We carried out the optimization by tuning the relative angles among the individual half-wave plates (HWP) of the five- and nine-layer AHWP. The optimized set of the relative angles achieves the frequency independent optic axis and covers the fractional bandwidth of 1.3 and 1.5 for five- and nine-layer AHWPs, respectively. We also study the susceptibility of the alignment accuracy, which can be chosen based on the requirement in each application.

We are developing a 100-GHz band 109-pixel MKID camera for the Nobeyama 45-m telescope. The camera optics contains plano-convex silicon (Si) lenses with 300- and 154-mm diameters located at the 4-K and 1-K stages, and a vacuum window of 320-mm diameter. Antireflective subwavelength structures (SWSs) for the Si lenses and the vacuum window were designed to reduce surface reflection. Cyclo olefin polymer (COP) was chosen as the base material for vacuum window as the dielectric loss is comparable with high-density polyethylene and it is easy to fabricate. Antireflective SWSs optimized for 100-GHz band were simulated using ANSYS HFSS. A one-layer rectangular pillar was designed for a Si lens of 300-mm diameter and a 320-mm diameter COP window to examine the fabrication process in large areas. For 154-mm diameter Si lens, a 1.2-mm depth tapered structure was used to obtain broadband characteristics. These designed structures were fabricated on both sides using a three-axis numerically-controlled machine. An end mill and a metal-bonded dicing blade were used for cutting the COP and Si, respectively. W-band vector network analyzer was used for S-parameter measurements of the SWS formed flat surface at an ambient temperature. Average surface reflectance of Si lenses and transmittance of the COP window in the 90–110 GHz range were found at approximately 1% and 98%, respectively.

We present a breadboard model development status of the polarization modulator unit (PMU) for a low-frequency telescope (LFT) of the LiteBIRD space mission. LiteBIRD is a next-generation cosmic microwave background polarization satellite to measure the primordial B-mode with the science goal of σr < 0.001. The baseline design of LiteBIRD consists of reflective low-frequency and refractive medium-and-high-frequency telescopes. Each telescope employs the PMU based on a continuous rotating half-wave plate (HWP) at the aperture. The PMU is a critical instrument for the LiteBIRD to achieve the science goal because it significantly suppresses 1/f noise and mitigates systematic uncertainties. The LiteBIRD LFT PMU consists of a broadband achromatic HWP and a cryogenic rotation mechanism. In this presentation, we discuss requirements, design and systematic studies of the PMU, and we report the development status of the broadband HWP and the space-compatible cryogenic rotation mechanism.

The 1.85-m mm-submm telescope has been operated at Nobeyama Radio Observatory to observe molecular clouds in the nearby Galactic Plane based on the molecular lines of ¹²CO, ¹³CO, C¹⁸O(J = 2–1). We are planning to relocate the telescope to a site (∼2,500 m) at the Atacama Desert in Chile and to newly install a dual-band receiver for simultaneous observations of lines of CO isotopes with the transitions of J = 2–1 and J = 3–2. In order to achieve this goal, we have developed a wideband diplexer to separate radio frequency (RF) 211–275 GHz (ALMA Band 6) and 275–373 GHz (ALMA Band 7). We adopted a waveguide type FrequencySeparation Filters (FSF) as the basic concept of the wideband diplexer in 210–375 GHz. The wideband diplexer (α) has already been fabricated and measured as the prototype, and we thus obtained reasonable performance in the CO lines band. On the other hand, the measurement result indicates the return loss is relatively worse in 280–300 GHz, although it doesn’t affect the simultaneous observations of 230 GHz and 345 GHz band. We carried out 3D shape measurement with an optical microscope, and then, found that there are machining errors in the parts of the resonator in High Pass Filter. The analysis based on electromagnetic simulation reveals that the errors significantly affect return loss around cut-off frequency. In this paper, we describes the design of the waveguide diplexer, S-parameter measurement, and detailed analysis to verify the discrepancy between simulation and measurement.

Currently, we are performing a large-scale survey of molecular clouds toward the Galactic Plane in ¹²CO, ¹³CO, and C¹⁸O(J = 2–1) with the 1.85-m mm-submm telescope from Nobeyama Radio Observatory. In addition, we are proceeding with the preparation of a new project to observe several additional molecular lines including higher transitions of CO isotopes, such as ¹²CO, ¹³CO, and C¹⁸O(J = 2–1, 3–2) simultaneously with a wideband receiver (210–375 GHz). The optics has a Cassegrain reflector antenna with Nasmyth beam-waveguide feed and is composed of Main-reflector, Sub-reflector, ellipsoidal mirrors, and plane mirrors. New wideband optics will be required to achieve this goal. In order to accomplish the optics, we have designed a corrugated horn with a fractional bandwidth of ∼56 %, and frequency independent optics to couple the beam from the telescope onto the horn. The corrugated horn has a conical profile and the variable corrugation depth. It has been optimized by using CHAMP, our targeting return loss of better than −20 dB, cross-polarization loss of better than −25 dB, and far-field good radiation pattern. The simulation of the corrugated horn results in low return loss, low crosspolarization, and symmetric beam pattern in that frequency band. The simulated aperture efficiency of the designed receiver optics on the 1.85-m telescope is above 0.76 at all frequencies by using GRASP. Recently, we have succeeded in simultaneous observation of ¹²CO, ¹³CO, and C¹⁸O(J = 2–1 and 3–2) toward Orion KL with the optics for the first time.

We have developed a prototype half-wave plate (HWP) based polarization modulator (PMU) for Cosmic Microwave Background polarization measurement experiments. We built a 1/10 scaled PMU that consists of a 50 mm diameter five-layer achromatic HWP with a moth-eye broadband anti-reflection sub-wavelength structure mounted on a superconducting magnetic bearing. The entire system has cooled below 20 K in a cryostat chamber that has two millimeter-wave transparent windows. A coherent source and the diode detector are placed outside of the cryostat and the millimeter-wave goes through the PMU in the cryostat. We have measured the modulated signal by the PMU, analyzed the spectral signatures, and extracted the modulation efficiency over the frequency coverage of 34-161 GHz. We identified the peaks in the optical data, which are synchronous to the rotational frequency. We also identified the peaks that are originated from the resonance frequency of the levitating system. We also recovered the modulation efficiency as a function of the incident electromagnetic frequency and the data agrees to the predicted curves within uncertainties of the input parameters, i.e. the indices of refraction, thickness, and angle alignment. Finally, we discuss the implication of the results when this is applied to the LiteBIRD low-frequency telescope.

Since the start of full science operations from 2004, the Submillimeter Array has been implementing plans to expand IF bandwidths and upgrade receivers and cryostats. Metal mesh low-pass filters were designed to block infrared (IR) radiation to reduce the thermal load on the cryostats. Filters were fabricated on a quartz wafer through photolithography and coated with anti-reflection (AR) material. The filters were tested from 200 to 400 GHz to verify their passband performances. The measurement results were found to be in good agreement with EM simulation results. They were tested in the far-infrared (FIR) frequency range to verify out-of-band rejection. The IR reflectivity was found to be approximately 70%, which corresponded to the percentage of the area blocked by metal.

A polarization modulator unit for a low-frequency telescope in LiteBIRD employs an achromatic half-wave plate (AHWP). It consists of five-layer a-cut sapphire plates, which are stacked based on a Pancharatnam recipe. In this way, the retardance of the AHWP is a half-wave over the bandwidth of 34 - 161 GHz. The diameter of a single sapphire plate is about 500mm and the thickness is about 5 mm. When a large diameter AHWP is used for a space mission, it is important for the AHWP to survive launch vibration. A preliminary study indicates that the five-layer-stacked HWP has a risk of breakage at the launch unless the 5 layers are glued together and mechanically treated as one disk. In this paper, we report our investigation using a sodium silicate solution which can bond between sapphire plates. This technique has been previously investigated as a candidate cryogenic glue for a mirror material, including sapphire, of the gravitational wave detector, LIGO and KAGRA. We experimentally studied the mechanical strength of the bonded interface for two different surface conditions, polished and unpolished. We demonstrated the tensile and shear strength of above 20MPa for samples with a polished surface, respectively. We also identified that samples glued on a polished surface show higher strength than unpolished ones by a factor of 2 for tensile and 18 for shear strength. We searched for any optical effects, e.g. extra gap or absorption by the bonding interface, by measuring the millimeter-wave transmission spectra in 90-140 GHz. We did not find any optical effect caused by the bonded interface within 2% error in transmittance that is originated from the measurement system.

The Simons Observatory (SO) will be a cosmic microwave background (CMB) survey experiment with three small-aperture telescopes (SATs) and one large-aperture telescope, which will observe from the Atacama Desert in Chile. To control for systematics in the polarization signal, the SAT design will use a continuously rotating cryogenic half wave plate (HWP) on a high-temperature superconductor magnetic levitation bearing. This is the largest such cryogenic rotation mechanism to be deployed on a telescope to date. We will discuss the design and the mechanical and thermal performance of the SAT HWP rotator.

Accurate optical modeling is important for the design and characterisation of current and next-generation experiments studying the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Geometrical Optics (GO) cannot model diffractive effects. In this work, we discuss two methods that incorporate diffraction, Physical Optics (PO) and the Geometrical Theory of Diffraction (GTD). We simulate the optical response of a ground-based two-lens refractor design shielded by a ground screen with time-reversed simulations. In particular, we use GTD to determine the interplay between the design of the refractor’s forebaffle and the sidelobes caused by interaction with the ground screen

Publisher’s Note: This paper, originally published on 13 December 2020, was replaced with a corrected/revised version on 8 January 2021. If you downloaded the original PDF but are unable to access the revision, please contact SPIE Digital Library Customer Service for assistance.

This paper, originally published on 13 December 2020, was replaced with a corrected/revised version on 2 February 2021. If you downloaded the original PDF but are unable to access the revision, please contact SPIE Digital Library Customer Service for assistance.