Horn-coupled, commercially-fabricated aluminum lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors for millimeter wavelengths

Journal Article · Mon Dec 15 00:00:00 EST 2014 · Review of Scientific Instruments

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4903855· OSTI ID:22392267

Flanigan, D.; Jones, G.; Johnson, B. R.; Araujo, D.; Limon, M.; Luu, V.; Miller, A. ^[1]; Ade, P.; Doyle, S.; Tucker, C. ^[2]; Bradford, K.; Che, G. ^[3]; Cantor, R. ^[4]; Day, P.; Leduc, H. ^[5]; Mauskopf, P. ^[2]; Mroczkowski, T. ^[6]; Zmuidzinas, J. ^[5]

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1. Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10025 (United States)
2. School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales CF24 3AA (United Kingdom)
3. Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287 (United States)
4. STAR Cryoelectronics, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508 (United States)
5. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, Pasadena, California 91109 (United States)
6. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC 20375 (United States)

We discuss the design, fabrication, and testing of prototype horn-coupled, lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) designed for cosmic microwave background studies. The LEKIDs are made from a thin aluminum film deposited on a silicon wafer and patterned using standard photolithographic techniques at STAR Cryoelectronics, a commercial device foundry. We fabricated 20-element arrays, optimized for a spectral band centered on 150 GHz, to test the sensitivity and yield of the devices as well as the multiplexing scheme. We characterized the detectors in two configurations. First, the detectors were tested in a dark environment with the horn apertures covered, and second, the horn apertures were pointed towards a beam-filling cryogenic blackbody load. These tests show that the multiplexing scheme is robust and scalable, the yield across multiple LEKID arrays is 91%, and the measured noise-equivalent temperatures for a 4 K optical load are in the range 26±6 μK√(s)

• OSTI ID: 22392267
• Journal Information: Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 85, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0034-6748
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ALUMINIUM
APERTURES
DEPOSITS
DESIGN
EQUIPMENT
FABRICATION
FILMS
FOUNDRIES
GHZ RANGE 100-1000
INDUCTANCE
NOISE
RELICT RADIATION
SENSITIVITY
SILICON
WAVELENGTHS