An Open Source, FPGA-Based LeKID Readout for BLAST-TNG: Pre-Flight Results

Gordon, Samuel; Dober, Bradley; Sinclair, Adrian; Rowe, S.; Bryan, Sean; Mauskopf, Philip Daniel; Austermann, J. E.; Devlin, Mark J.; Dicker, Simon; Gao, Jiansong; Hilton, G. C.; Hubmayr, Johannes; Jones, Glenn; Klein, J.; Lourie, Nathan P.; McKenney, Christopher; Nati, F.; Soler, J. D.; Strader, M. J.

doi:10.1142/s2251171716410038

Cited by 53 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(12 reference statements)

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“…The converted signal is processed by the FPGA to measure the amplitudes of the I ad Q signals transmitted by all the KID pixels. The FPGA firmware has been developed by ASU, and is able to generate up to 1000 tones over an up-converted 512 MHz bandwidth, with a demodulated output sampling rate up to about 1 kHz [28].…”

Section: Readoutmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kinetic inductance detectors for the OLIMPO experiment: design and pre-flight characterization

Paiella¹,

Coppolecchia²,

Lamagna³

et al. 2019

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

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We designed, fabricated, and characterized four arrays of horn-coupled, lumped element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs), optimized to work in the spectral bands of the balloon-borne OLIMPO experiment. OLIMPO is a 2.6 m aperture telescope, aimed at spectroscopic measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. OLIMPO will also validate the LEKID technology in a representative space environment. The corrected focal plane is filled with diffraction limited horn-coupled KID arrays, with 19, 37, 23, 41 active pixels respectively at 150, 250, 350, and 460 GHz.Here we report on the full electrical and optical characterization performed on these detector arrays before the flight. In a dark laboratory cryostat, we measured the resonator electrical parameters, such as the quality factors and the electrical responsivities, at a base temperature of 300 mK. The measured average resonator Qs are 1.7 × 10 4 , 7.0 × 10 3 , 1.0 × 10 4 , and 1.0 × 10 4 for the 150, 250, 350, and 460 GHz arrays, respectively. The average electrical phase responsivities on resonance are 1.4 rad/pW, 1.5 rad/pW, 2.1 rad/pW, and 2.1 rad/pW; the electrical noise equivalent powers are 45 aW/ √ Hz, 160 aW/ √ Hz, 80 aW/ √ Hz, and 140 aW/ √ Hz, at 12 Hz. In the OLIMPO cryostat, we measured the optical properties, such as the noise equivalent temperatures (NET) and the spectral responses. The measured NET RJ s are 200 µK √ s, 240 µK √ s, 240 µK √ s, and 340 µK √ s, at 12 Hz; under 78, 88, 92, and 90 mK Rayleigh-Jeans blackbody load changes respectively for the 150, 250, 350, and 460 GHz arrays. The spectral responses were characterized with the OLIMPO differential Fourier transform spectrometer (DFTS) up to THz frequencies, with a resolution of 1.8 GHz.

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Section: Readoutmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kinetic inductance detectors for the OLIMPO experiment: design and pre-flight characterization

Paiella¹,

Coppolecchia²,

Lamagna³

et al. 2019

J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys.

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“…The bias/readout system is composed of two independent chains, each serving two detector arrays and based on one ROACH2 board, including a MUSIC DAC/ADC board, and analog microwave components as amplifiers, bias tees, IQ modulator, IQ demodulator and attenuators. These systems, together with the firmware and the client software, were developed, tuned and characterized on the ground and described in [27,30]. The power dissipation system of the bias/readout electronics was modified in order to allow the components to work nominally in the stratospheric environment, where the external pressure of about 3 mbar results in a drastic reduction of convective cooling with respect to the ground.…”

Section: Detector Design and Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In-Flight Performance of the LEKIDs of the OLIMPO Experiment

et al. 2020

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We describe the in-flight performance of the horn-coupled Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detector arrays of the balloon-borne OLIMPO experiment. These arrays have been designed to match the spectral bands of OLIMPO: 150, 250, 350, and 460 GHz, and they have been operated at 0.3 K and at an altitude of 37.8 km during the stratospheric flight of the OLIMPO payload, in Summer 2018. During the first hours of flight, we tuned the detectors and verified their large dynamics under the radiative background variations due to elevation increase of the telescope and to the insertion of the plug-in room-temperature differential Fourier transform spectrometer into the optical chain. We have found that the detector noise equivalent powers are close to be photon-noise limited and lower than those measured on the ground. Moreover, the data contamination due to primary cosmic rays hitting the arrays is less than 3% for all the pixels of all the arrays, and less than 1% for most of the pixels. These results can be considered the first step of KID technology validation in a representative space environment.

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“…An additional measurement was performed with a custom FPGA based readout. This consisted of a ROACH2 with a MUSIC A/D and D/A board along with FPGA firmware that is intended to readout large arrays of kinetic inductance detectors for BLAST-TNG [6]. We also used a slightly modified version of kidPy, a Python based terminal user interface program for operating the ROACH2 system with kinetic inductance detectors.…”

Section: Preliminary Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, all of these schemes require significant development of external readout hardware. Meanwhile, for a number of years frequency multiplexed readout electronics have been developed for kinetic inductance detectors [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. A few of these readouts are actively deployed as facility instruments [9] [8] and more are planned to be [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstration of Microwave Multiplexed Readout of DC-Biased Superconducting Nanowire Detectors

Sinclair

Schroeder

Zhu

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. Appl. Supercond.

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Superconducting nanowires are widely used as sensitive single photon detectors with wide spectral coverage and high timing resolution. We describe a demonstration of an array of DC biased superconducting nanowire single photon detectors read out with a microwave multiplexing circuit. In this design, each individual nanowire is part of a resonant LC circuit where the inductance is dominated by the kinetic inductance of the nanowire. The circuit also contains two parallel plate capacitors, one of them is in parallel with the inductor and the other is coupled to a microwave transmission line which carries the signals to a cryogenic low noise amplifier. All of the nanowires are connected via resistors to a single DC bias line that enables the nanowires to be current biased close to their critical current. When a photon hits a nanowire it creates a normal hot spot which produces a voltage pulse across the LC circuit. This pulse rings down at the resonant frequency of the LC circuit over a time period that is fixed by the quality factor. We present measurements of an array of these devices and an evaluation of their performance in terms of frequency and time response.

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An Open Source, FPGA-Based LeKID Readout for BLAST-TNG: Pre-Flight Results

Cited by 53 publications

References 15 publications

Kinetic inductance detectors for the OLIMPO experiment: design and pre-flight characterization

Kinetic inductance detectors for the OLIMPO experiment: design and pre-flight characterization

In-Flight Performance of the LEKIDs of the OLIMPO Experiment

Demonstration of Microwave Multiplexed Readout of DC-Biased Superconducting Nanowire Detectors

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