Superconducting microresonators for detection and multiplexing

Superconducting microresonators are drawing increasing attention for use in sensitive THz detection, especially for astronomical applications. These are relatively simple thin-film lithographically produced devices that are amenable to large-scale microwave frequency multiplexing. Indeed, such resonators have very high quality factors, in the range 10^4 to 10^6, potentially allowing 10^3 to 10^4 resonators to be multiplexed using a single cryogenic low-noise amplifier (HEMT). The resonators may themselves serve as detectors given appropriate coupling of the signal energy, or the resonators may be used to multiplex a broad range of other devices such as SIN or SIS tunnel junction detectors, SQUID preamplifiers for TES bolometers, etc. One of the major advantages of microwave frequency multiplexing is that much of the complexity of the readout system is transferred to room temperature, where it is now feasible to produce readouts with very high channel counts using FPGA digital signal processing along with fast, high-resolution ADCs and DACs. This presentation will give an overview of the topics described above, including an introduction to the basic physics of superconducting microresonators and their noise mechanisms, and as a concrete example will describe the development of a 2.5 kilopixel millimeter-wave multicolor camera system for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory

Chasing Tom Phillips

This paper gives an informal and personal view of the major impact that Tom Phillips has had on the author’s scientific career and field of research

On the use of shot noise for photon counting

Lieu et al. (2015) have recently claimed that it is possible to substantially improve the sensitivity of radio astronomical observations. In essence, their proposal is to make use of the intensity of the photon shot noise as a measure of the photon arrival rate. Lieu et al. (2015) provide a detailed quantum-mechanical calculation of a proposed measurement scheme that uses two detectors and conclude that this scheme avoids the sensitivity degradation that is associated with photon bunching. If correct, this result could have a profound impact on radio astronomy. Here I present a detailed analysis of the sensitivity attainable using shot-noise measurement schemes that use either one or two detectors, and demonstrate that neither scheme can avoid the photon bunching penalty. I perform both semiclassical and fully quantum calculations of the sensitivity, obtaining consistent results, and provide a formal proof of the equivalence of these two approaches. These direct calculations are furthermore shown to be consistent with an indirect argument based on a correlation method that establishes an independent limit to the sensitivity of shot-noise measurement schemes. Collectively, these results conclusively demonstrate that the photon bunching sensitivity penalty applies to shot noise measurement schemes just as it does to ordinary photon counting, in contradiction to the fundamental claim made by Lieu et al. (2015). The source of this contradiction is traced to a logical fallacy in their argument.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures; submitted to Ap

Stabilization of He2(A(sup 3)Sigma(sub u)(+)) molecules in liquid helium by optical pumping for vacuum UV laser

A technique is disclosed for achieving large populations of metastable spin-aligned He2(a 3 Sigma u +) molecules in superfluid helium to obtain lasing in the vacuum ultraviolet wavelength regime around 0.0800 micron m by electronically exciting liquid (superfluid) helium with a comparatively low-current electron beam and spin aligning the metastable molecules by means of optical pumping with a modestly-powered (100mW) circularly-polarized continuous wave laser operating at, for example, 0.9096 or 0.4650 micron m. Once a high concentration of spin-aligned He2 (a 3 Sigma u +) is achieved with lifetimes of a few milliseconds, a strong microwave signal destroys the spin alignment and induces a quick collisional transition of He2 (a 3 Sigma u +) molecules to the a 1 Sigma u + state and thereby a lasing transition to the X 1 Sigma g + state

Technology for Submillimeter Astronomy

Despite about three decades of progress, the field of submillimeter astronomy remains quite challenging, because the detection technology is still under development and the transmission of the atmosphere is poor. The latter problem has been overcome by constructing submillimeter telescopes at excellent sites, first on Mauna Kea and later in Chile and Antarctica, and also by using airborne and space telescopes. Meanwhile, the improvements in technology over the past several decades have been remarkable. While considerable opportunities for improvement remain, existing detector and receiver technologies now often approach fundamental limits. This technological revolution has brought submillimeter astronomy from the fringes to the forefront of modern astrophysics and has stimulated major investments such as the 50-element ALMA interferometer and the ESA/NASA Herschel Space Observatory

Cramér-Rao sensitivity limits for astronomical instruments: implications for interferometer design

Multiple-telescope interferometry for high-angular-resolution astronomical imaging in the optical–IR–far-IR bands is currently a topic of great scientific interest. The fundamentals that govern the sensitivity of direct-detection instruments and interferometers are reviewed, and the rigorous sensitivity limits imposed by the Cramér–Rao theorem are discussed. Numerical calculations of the Cramér–Rao limit are carried out for a simple example, and the results are used to support the argument that interferometers that have more compact instantaneous beam patterns are more sensitive, since they extract more spatial information from each detected photon. This argument favors arrays with a larger number of telescopes, and it favors all-on-one beam-combining methods as compared with pairwise combination

Geometrical Origin of Internal Symmetries

Group-theoretical method for internal symmetries of elementary particles from space-time geometry determinatio

A dual-polarized slot antenna for millimeter waves

We describe a new dual-polarized slot antenna to be used with quad-optical devices such as superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixers at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. The radiation and impedance characteristics of the antenna were obtained from a moment-method calculation. The antenna has an excellent radiation pattern, a low impedance, wide bandwidth, and low cross polarization

Quark Model of Leptons

Model in which leptons are deeply bound states of combinations of quarks and quirk

Multiplexable Kinetic Inductance Detectors

We are starting to investigate a novel multiplexable readout method that can be applied to a large class of superconducting pair-breaking detectors. This readout method is completely different from those currently used with STJ and TES detectors, and in principle could deliver large pixel counts, high sensitivity, and Fano-limited spectral resolution. The readout is based on the fact that the kinetic surface inductance L_s of a superconductor is a function of the density of quasiparticles n, even at temperatures far below T_c. An efficient way to measure changes in the kinetic inductance is to monitor the transmission phase of a resonant circuit. By working at microwave frequencies and using thin films, the kinetic inductance can be a significant part of the total inductance L, and the volume of the inductor can be made quite small, on the order of 1 µm^3. As is done with other superconducting detectors, trapping could be used to concentrate the quasiparticles into the small volume of the inductor. However, the most intriguing aspect of the concept is that passive frequency multiplexing could be used to read out ~10^3 detectors with a single HEMT amplifier