Kinetic Inductance Detectors for the OLIMPO experiment: in-flight operation and performance

We describe the in-flight performance of the horn-coupled Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detector arrays of the balloon-borne OLIMPO experiment. These arrays have been designed to match the spectral bands of OLIMPO: 150, 250, 350, and 460 GHz, and they have been operated at 0.3 K and at an altitude of 37.8 km during the stratospheric flight of the OLIMPO payload, in Summer 2018. During the first hours of flight, we tuned the detectors and verified their large dynamics under the radiative background variations due to elevation increase of the telescope and to the insertion of the plug-in room-temperature differential Fourier transform spectrometer into the optical chain. We have found that the detector noise equivalent powers are close to be photon-noise limited and lower than those measured on the ground. Moreover, the data contamination due to primary cosmic rays hitting the arrays is less than 3% for all the pixels of all the arrays, and less than 1% for most of the pixels. These results can be considered the first step of KID technology validation in a representative space environment.

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“…The detailed analysis of the in-flight tuning, performance and impact of cosmic rays of the OLIMPO detectors is described in [32].…”

Section: Detector Design and Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this period the telescope boresight was stable and the detectors were tuned. Fitting the histograms and integrating the best fit of the CR amplitude distributions between the minimum and the maximum amplitude, we estimated the fraction of contaminated data [32]. The results are collected in tab.…”

Section: Data Contamination By Cosmic Raysmentioning

confidence: 99%

In-Flight Performance of the LEKIDs of the OLIMPO Experiment

et al. 2020

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“…In this context, there is great interest in developing technologies to produce large antenna arrays to be coupled to low-noise detectors like Transition Edge Sensors (TES, [7,8]) and Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs, [9][10][11][12]). Critical assets are scalability, low-cost, and high optical performance in the frequency range 95-220 GHz, which is currently the most exploited CMB observational window.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A chemically etched corrugated feedhorn array for D-band CMB observations

et al. 2021

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We present the design, manufacturing, and testing of a 37-element array of corrugated feedhorns for Cosmic Microwave Background CMB) measurements between 140 and 170 GHz. The array was designed to be coupled to Kinetic Inductance Detector arrays, either directly (for total power measurements) or through an orthomode transducer (for polarization measurements). We manufactured the array in platelets by chemically etching aluminum plates of 0.3 mm and 0.4 mm thickness. The process is fast, low-cost, scalable, and yields high-performance antennas compared to other techniques in the same frequency range. Room temperature electromagnetic measurements show excellent repeatability with an average cross polarization level about − 20 dB, return loss about − 25 dB, first sidelobes below − 25 dB and far sidelobes below − 35 dB. Our results qualify this process as a valid candidate for state-of-the-art CMB experiments, where large detector arrays with high sensitivity and polarization purity are of paramount importance in the quest for the discovery of CMB polarization B-modes.

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“…Modern measurements of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization 1 use large-throughput arrays of transition edge sensors (TESs) [2][3][4][5] or kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) [6][7][8][9] operating in a cryogenic environment. The detectors are cooled to sub-K temperature to maximize their sensitivity, and the optical components of the polarimeter are also cooled to reduce the radiative loading on the detectors and minimize systematic effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%