Characterization of a Far-Infrared Kinetic Inductance Detector Prototype for PRIMA
Creators
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1.
California Institute of Technology
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2.
Jet Propulsion Lab
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3.
Delft University of Technology
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4.
Goddard Space Flight Center
Abstract
The PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) is under study as a potential far-IR space mission, featuring actively cooled optics, and both imaging and spectroscopic instrumentation. To fully take advantage of the low background afforded by a cold telescope, spectroscopy with PRIMA requires detectors with a noise equivalent power (NEP) better than 1×10−19 W Hz−1/2. To meet this goal, we are developing large format arrays of kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) to work across the 25–250 μm range. Here, we present the design and characterization of a single pixel prototype detector optimized for 210 μm. The KID consists of a lens-coupled aluminum inductor-absorber connected to a niobium interdigitated capacitor to form a 2 GHz resonator. We have fabricated a small array with 28 KIDs, and we measure the performance of one of these detectors with an optical loading in the 0.01–300 aW range. At low loading, the detector achieves an NEP of 9×10−20 W Hz−1/2 at a 10 Hz readout frequency. An extrapolation of these measurements suggests this detector may remain photon noise limited at up to 20 fW of loading, offering a high dynamic range for PRIMA observations of bright astronomical sources.
Copyright and License
© 2025, IEEE.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank J. Zmuidzinas for contributing to useful discussions and providing constructive criticism of the manuscript.
Funding
- NASA ; Grant number: 80NSSC19K0489
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- California Institute of Technology
Additional details
Funding
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC19K0489
- California Institute of Technology
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Dates
- Available
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2025-05-12Published online
Caltech Custom Metadata
- Caltech groups
- Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA) , Physics Department
- Publication Status
- Published