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.
In context of numerical weather prediction (NWP), increased usage of satellites radiance observations from passive microwave sensors have brought significant improvements in the forecast skills. In the infrared spectral region, hyperspectral sounder instruments such as IASI have already benefitted the NWP assimilation systems, but they are useful only under clear sky conditions. Currently, microwave instruments are providing wealth of information on clouds, precipitation and surface etc., but only with limited number of channels. Furthermore, due to limited number of channels and with poor signal-to-noise ratio, existing passive microwave sensors have very poor resolution and accuracy.
We are currently developing a new microwave instrument concept, based on superconducting filterbank spectrometers, which will enable high spectral resolution observations of atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles across the microwave/sub-millimeter wavelength region with photon-noise-limited sensitivity. This study aims at investigating the information content on temperature and water-vapour that could be provided by such a hyperspectral microwave instrument under clear sky-conditions. Here, we present a new concept of Transition Edge Sensors (TESs)-based hyperspectral microwave instrument for atmospheric sounding applications. In this study, for assessing the impact of hyperspectral sampling in microwave spectral region in clear sky-conditions, we have estimated the information content as standard figure of merit called as degrees of freedom for signal (DFS). The DFS for a set of temperature and humidity sounding channels (50-60 GHz, 118GHz and 183 GHz) have been analyzed under the linear optimal estimation theory framework.
We present a new satellite-based instrument concept that will enable global measurements of atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles with unprecedented resolution and accuracy, compared to currently planned missions. It will also provide global measurements of essential climate variables related to ice clouds that will better constrain global climate models. The instrument is enabled by the use of superconducting detectors coupled to superconducting filterbank spectrometers, operating between 50GHz and 850 GHz. We present the science drivers, the current instrument concept and status, and predicted performance.
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