Prospects of kinetic inductance current sensors for multiplexed microcalorimeter readout

Published

March 12, 2026

Author(s)

Galen O'Neil, Simon Bandler, Ian Fogarty Florang, John Mates, Daniel Swetz, Paul Szypryt, Thomas Stevenson, Leaf Swordy, Joel Ullom, Michael Vissers, Jordan Wheeler, Wonsik Yoon

Abstract

Superconducting microcalorimeter arrays with hun- dreds to thousands of pixels are enabling new measurements and capabilities in exotic atom spectroscopy, x-ray astronomy, nuclear materials analysis, and many other fields. We consider the prospects of multiplexing microcalorimeters with the kinetic inductance current sensor (KICS), an alternative to the supercon- ducting quantum interference device (SQUID) historically used to read out cryogenic microcalorimeters. We show that the amplifier limited noise performance of the KICS is limited by its dynamic range, which is a free design parameter and tuneable with a DC current bias. We predict that KICS can meet the requirements to read out prototype metallic magnetic calorimeter (MMC) pixels designed for the Lynx x-ray satellite mission concept with the use of low-latency tone tracking. We propose a KICS design that has both high coupling efficiency and high isolation between the RF and DC components of the circuit. We argue that the KICS provides engineering trade-offs that are better suited to the readout of microcalorimeters when compared to the analogous microwave SQUID multiplexer.

Citation

IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

Volume

36

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2026.3673656

Local Download

Keywords

multiplexing, megapixel, kinetic inductance cur- rent sensor, KICS, magnetic microcalorimeter, MMC

Citation

O'Neil, G. , Bandler, S. , Fogarty Florang, I. , Mates, J. , Swetz, D. , Szypryt, P. , Stevenson, T. , Swordy, L. , Ullom, J. , Vissers, M. , Wheeler, J. and Yoon, W. (2026), Prospects of kinetic inductance current sensors for multiplexed microcalorimeter readout, IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2026.3673656, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=960451 (Accessed July 12, 2026)

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