14 research outputs found
First light demonstration of the integrated superconducting spectrometer
Ultra-wideband 3D imaging spectrometry in the millimeter-submillimeter
(mm-submm) band is an essential tool for uncovering the dust-enshrouded portion
of the cosmic history of star formation and galaxy evolution. However, it is
challenging to scale up conventional coherent heterodyne receivers or
free-space diffraction techniques to sufficient bandwidths (1 octave) and
numbers of spatial pixels (>). Here we present the design and first
astronomical spectra of an intrinsically scalable, integrated superconducting
spectrometer, which covers 332-377 GHz with a spectral resolution of . It combines the multiplexing advantage of microwave kinetic
inductance detectors (MKIDs) with planar superconducting filters for dispersing
the signal in a single, small superconducting integrated circuit. We
demonstrate the two key applications for an instrument of this type: as an
efficient redshift machine, and as a fast multi-line spectral mapper of
extended areas. The line detection sensitivity is in excellent agreement with
the instrument design and laboratory performance, reaching the atmospheric
foreground photon noise limit on sky. The design can be scaled to bandwidths in
excess of an octave, spectral resolution up to a few thousand and frequencies
up to 1.1 THz. The miniature chip footprint of a few
allows for compact multi-pixel spectral imagers, which would enable
spectroscopic direct imaging and large volume spectroscopic surveys that are
several orders of magnitude faster than what is currently possible.Comment: Published in Nature Astronomy. SharedIt Link to the full published
paper: https://rdcu.be/bM2F
DESHIMA on ASTE: On-Sky Responsivity Calibration of the Integrated Superconducting Spectrometer
Instrumentatio