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Title: The POLARBEAR-2 and Simons Array Focal Plane Fabrication Status

Journal Article · · Journal of Low Temperature Physics

We present on the status of POLARBEAR-2 A (PB2-A) focal plane fabrication. The PB2-A is the first of three telescopes in the Simons Array, which is an array of three cosmic microwave background polarization-sensitive telescopes located at the POLARBEAR site in Northern Chile. As the successor to the PB experiment, each telescope and receiver combination is named as PB2-A, PB2-B, and PB2-C. PB2-A and -B will have nearly identical receivers operating at 90 and 150 GHz while PB2-C will house a receiver operating at 220 and 270 GHz. Each receiver contains a focal plane consisting of seven close-hex packed lenslet-coupled sinuous antenna transition edge sensor bolometer arrays. Each array contains 271 dichroic optical pixels, each of which has four TES bolometers for a total of 7588 detectors per receiver. We have produced a set of two types of candidate arrays for PB2-A. The first we call Version 11 (V11) uses a silicon oxide (SiOx) for the transmission lines and crossover process for orthogonal polarizations. The second we call Version 13 (V13) uses silicon nitride (SiNx) for the transmission lines and cross-under process for orthogonal polarizations. We have produced enough of each type of array to fully populate the focal plane of the PB2-A receiver. The average wirebond yield for V11 and V13 arrays is 93.2% and 95.6%, respectively. The V11 arrays had a superconducting transition temperature (T-c) of 452 +/- 15 mK, a normal resistance (R-n) of 1.25 +/- 0.20 Omega, and saturation powers of 5.2 +/- 1.0 pW and 13 +/- 1.2 pW for the 90 and 150 GHz bands, respectively. The V13 arrays had a superconducting transition temperature (T-c) of 456 +/- 6 mK, a normal resistance (R-n) of 1.1 +/- 0.2 Omega, and saturation powers of 10.8 +/- 1.8 pW and 22.9 +/- 2.6 pW for the 90 and 150 GHz bands, respectively. Production and characterization of arrays for PB2-B are ongoing and are expected to be completed by the summer of 2018. We have fabricated the first three candidate arrays for PB2-C but do not have any characterization results to present at this time.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan; National Science Foundation (NSF); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); Simons Foundation; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); Chilean Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1572524
Journal Information:
Journal of Low Temperature Physics, Vol. 193, Issue 5-6
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (9)

Advanced ACTPol Cryogenic Detector Arrays and Readout journal March 2016
Initial Performance of Bicep3: A Degree Angular Scale 95 GHz Band Polarimeter journal December 2015
The Polarbear-2 and the Simons Array Experiments journal January 2016
SPT-3G: a next-generation cosmic microwave background polarization experiment on the South Pole telescope conference July 2014
The LiteBIRD Satellite Mission: Sub-Kelvin Instrument journal May 2018
BoloCalc: a sensitivity calculator for the design of Simons Observatory
  • Hill, Charles A.; Bruno, Sarah Marie; Simon, Sara M.
  • Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IX https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313916
conference July 2018
POLARBEAR-2: an instrument for CMB polarization measurements conference August 2016
Development of the Next Generation of Multi-chroic Antenna-Coupled Transition Edge Sensor Detectors for CMB Polarimetry journal February 2016
Frequency multiplexed superconducting quantum interference device readout of large bolometer arrays for cosmic microwave background measurements journal July 2012

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