CaltechAUTHORS
Published February 17, 2003 | Version Published
Book Section - Chapter Open

Astronomical demonstration of superconducting bolometer arrays

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center
  • 2. ROR icon University of Paris-Saclay
  • 3. ROR icon National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • 4. ROR icon University of Wales
  • 5. ROR icon California Institute of Technology

Contributors

Abstract

We have built a prototype submillimeter spectrometer, FIBRE, which is based on a helium-cooled scanning Fabry-Perot and superconducting transition edge sensor bolometers (TES). SQUID multiplexers are used to read out the individual detector pixels. The spectral resolving power of the instrument is provided by the Fabry-Perot spectrometer. The outgoing light from the Fabry-Perot passes onto a low resolution grating for order sorting. A linear bolometer array consisting of 16 elements detects this dispersed light, capturing 5 orders simultaneously from one position on the sky. With tuning of the Fabry-Perot over one free spectral range, a spectrum covering Δλ/λ=1/7 at a resolution of ~1/1200 can be achieved. The spectral resolution is sufficient to resolve doppler broadened line emission from external galaxies. FIBRE operates in the 350 μm and 450 μm bands. These bands cover line emission from the important PDR tracers neutral carbon [CI] and carbon monoxide CO. The spectrometer was used at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory to obtain the first ever astronomical observations using multiplexed arrays of superconducting transition edge bolometers.

Additional Information

© 2003 Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). We thank the staff of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory for making the observations described here possible. Their support was crucial in the commissioning of FIBRE. We owe a debt of gratitude to many –too many to be named hereat NASA 's Goddard Space Flight Center for their contributions to the hardware and software that FIBRE uses.

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Identifiers

Eprint ID
92266
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20190114-155517879

Dates

Created
2019-01-15
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Updated
2021-11-16
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Caltech Custom Metadata

Series Name
Proceedings of SPIE
Series Volume or Issue Number
4855