Readout for kinetic-inductance-detector-based submillimeter radio astronomy

Abstract

A substantial amount of important scientific information is contained within astronomical data at the submillimeter and far-infrared (FIR) wavelengths, including information regarding dusty galaxies, galaxy clusters, and star-forming regions; however, these wavelengths are among the least-explored fields in astronomy because of the technological difficulties involved in such research. Over the past 20 years, considerable efforts have been devoted to developing submillimeter- and millimeter-wavelength astronomical instruments and telescopes. The number of detectors is an important property of such instruments and is the subject of the current study. Future telescopes will require as many as hundreds of thousands of detectors to meet the necessary requirements in terms of the field of view, scan speed, and resolution. A large pixel count is one benefit of the development of multiplexable detectors that use kinetic inductance detector (KID) technology. This paper presents the development of all aspects of the readout electronics for a KID-based instrument, which enabled one of the largest detector counts achieved to date in submillimeter-/millimeter-wavelength imaging arrays: a total of 2304 detectors. The work presented in this paper had been implemented in the MUltiwavelength Submillimeter Inductance Camera (MUSIC), a instrument for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) between 2013 and 2015.