280-GHz aluminum MKID arrays for the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope

Published

May 29, 2025

Author(s)

Anna Vaskuri, Jordan Wheeler, Jason Austermann, Michael Vissers, James Beall, James R. Burgoyne, Victoria Butler, Scott Chapman, Steve K. Choi, Abigail Crites, Cody J. Duell, Rodrigo Freundt, Anthony Huber, Zachary Huber, Johannes Hubmayr, Jozsef Imrek, Ben Keller, Lawrence Lin, Alicia Middleton, Michael D. Niemack, Thomas Nikola, Douglas Scott, Adrian Sinclair, Ema Smith, Gordon Stacey, Joel Ullom, Jeffrey Van Lanen, Eve Vavagiakis, Samantha Walker, Bugao Zou

Abstract

First light observations of the 280 GHz instrument module of the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) in the CCAT Collaboration are expected in 2026. The focal plane of this module will consist of three superconducting microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) arrays: two aluminum-based arrays, and one titanium-nitride array with a similar layout. In this work, we have designed, microfabricated, assembled, and characterized a large-format aluminum-based MKID array. The responsivity of the detectors matches design expectation and scales at various optical loading levels as expected for aluminum. We have determined the internal quality factors and optical efficiency of the detectors, feedhorn beam shape and the detector band pass. The detectors are photon-noise limited with the majority of the noise being white photon noise down to 1 Hz. The array matches simulated expectations and is ready for sensitive astronomical observations for CCAT.

Citation

Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems

Volume

11

Issue

2

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.11.2.026005

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Keywords

aluminum microwave kinetic inductance detector, large-format microwave kinetic inductance detector array, kinetic inductance, superconducting detector, millimeter-wave, polarimeter

Citation

Vaskuri, A. , Wheeler, J. , Austermann, J. , Vissers, M. , Beall, J. , Burgoyne, J. , Butler, V. , Chapman, S. , Choi, S. , Crites, A. , Duell, C. , Freundt, R. , Huber, A. , Huber, Z. , Hubmayr, J. , Imrek, J. , Keller, B. , Lin, L. , Middleton, A. , Niemack, M. , Nikola, T. , Scott, D. , Sinclair, A. , Smith, E. , Stacey, G. , Ullom, J. , Van Lanen, J. , Vavagiakis, E. , Walker, S. and Zou, B. (2025), 280-GHz aluminum MKID arrays for the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope, Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems, [online], https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.11.2.026005, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=959154 (Accessed October 13, 2025)