Preflight characterization of the BLAST-TNG receiver and detector arrays

Gao, Jian-Rong, Zmuidzinas, Jonas, Ullom, Joel N., Williams, Paul, Vissers, Michael, Tucker, Carole ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1851-3918, Soler, Juan D., Sinclair, Adrian, Pisano, Giampaolo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4302-5681, Pascale, Enzo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3242-8154, Novak, Giles, Nati, Federico, McKenney, Christopher M., Mauskopf, Philip ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6397-5516, Mani, Hamdi, Lowe, Ian, Li, Dale, Klein, Jeffrey, Hubmayr, Johannes, Hilton, Gene C., Groppi, Christopher E., Gordon, Samuel, Gao, Jiansong, Dober, Bradley, Devlin, Mark, Austermann, Jason E., Ashton, Peter C., Angile, Francisco E., Ade, Peter A. R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5127-0401, Galitzki, Nicholas and Lourie, Nathan P. 2018. Preflight characterization of the BLAST-TNG receiver and detector arrays. Presented at: Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, Austin, Texas, 10 June - 15 June 2018. Published in: Zmuidzinas, Jonas and Gao, Jian-Rong eds. Proceedings, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IX; 107080L (2018). Proceedings of SPIE , vol.10708 Bellingham, Washington: SPIE, p. 19. 10.1117/12.2314396

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Abstract

The Next Generation Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST-TNG) is a submillimeter mapping experiment planned for a 28 day long-duration balloon (LDB) flight from McMurdo Station, Antarctica during the 2018-2019 season. BLAST-TNG will detect submillimeter polarized interstellar dust emission, tracing magnetic fields in galactic molecular clouds. BLAST-TNG will be the first polarimeter with the sensitivity and resolution to probe the ~0.1 parsec-scale features that are critical to understanding the origin of structures in the interstellar medium. BLAST-TNG features three detector arrays operating at wavelengths of 250, 350, and 500 m (1200, 857, and 600 GHz) comprised of 918, 469, and 272 dual-polarization pixels, respectively. Each pixel is made up of two crossed microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs). These arrays are cooled to 275 mK in a cryogenic receiver. Each MKID has a different resonant frequency, allowing hundreds of resonators to be read out on a single transmission line. This inherent ability to be frequency-domain multiplexed simplifies the cryogenic readout hardware, but requires careful optical testing to map out the physical location of each resonator on the focal plane. Receiver-level optical testing was carried out using both a cryogenic source mounted to a movable xy-stage with a shutter, and a beam-filling, heated blackbody source able to provide a 10-50 C temperature chop. The focal plane array noise properties, responsivity, polarization efficiency, instrumental polarization were measured. We present the preflight characterization of the BLAST-TNG cryogenic system and array-level optical testing of the MKID detector arrays in the flight receiver.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	SPIE
ISBN:	9781510619708
ISSN:	1996-756X
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2025 21:29
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/120576

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