Integration of a Testbench for the Optical and Thermal Characterization of Near-Infrared Detectors Used in Ground and Space-Based Astronomy

Abstract

The mercury-cadmium-tellurium (MCT) sensors are considered the ideal infrared detectors to equip the focal plane arrays (FPAs) of astronomical scientific missions and nowadays, Europe is not self-sufficient on this technology. To tackle this problem, the Astronomy European Infrared Detector (ASTEROID) project aims to provide Europe with the capability to manufacture high performance infrared focal plane arrays devoted to scientific use, space astronomy and ground-based telescope infrastructures. The resulting detector will be a hybridized MCT array with a CdZnTe substrate of 2k x 2k pixels and 15 µm of pixel pitch. The Institut de Física d'Altes Energies (IFAE) will lead the task to validate the detector performance with respect to the hybridization reliability between the readout integrated circuit (ROIC) and the MCT detector by submitting it to several low temperature thermal cycles. After every thermal stress, the detector will be optically characterized in order to measure any performance degradation and possible problems with the pixel operability. To perform such tasks, two custom setups, focused on optical and cryo-vacuum aspects were developed, which used in conjunction, allow to cool down the detector from the room temperature up to ∼30K while it is electro-optically characterized in terms of linearity, gain, quantum efficiency and cosmetics defects, among others. The whole cryo-vacuum system and the optical setup is fully described in this paper as part of the work packages assigned to IFAE to test the hybridized detector to assess the reliability at operating temperature and after several thermal cycles.

Cryogenic Measurement of CMOS Devices for Quantum Technologies

“…Another parameter that has to be considered is the finite heat dissipation capabilities of refrigerators, which force the electronics to have a very low power consumption. For instance, [18] used a mechanically driven Gifford McMahon cryo-cooler connected to a Leybold COOLPACK helium compressor unit to achieve a cooling capacity of 175 at 80 K, well above the target operation temperature of quantum computers. Because the heat dissipation capabilities of state-of-the-art dilution refrigerators are limited, and it decreases when operated in deep cryogenic regimes, the readout and control electronic systems need to have very low electrical power consumption, below ∼1 mW/qubit at 4 K [19] so that the refrigerators can keep the required cryogenic temperature.…”