Solutions for high sensitivity direct detection in submillimeter astronomy

Abstract

The sensitivity specifications for next generation submillimeter instruments for astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology are between 1 and 2 orders of magnitude better than state of the art instruments like Herschel PACS. We are studying new solutions using semiconducting bolometers in order to achieve the required performances. We show that with minimum changes compared to our existing technology, we obtain very good performances with detectors that are very similar to the ones used for PACS. We also show our plans to go beyond these values.