An Open Source RFSoC-based Readout Electronics System for Arrays of Kinetic Inductance Detectors and Superconducting Resonators
Abstract
We present a novel readout electronics system for large arrays of superconducting electromagnetic resonators, such as kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs), based on a Radio Frequency System on Chip (RFSoC) architecture. Each channel in the readout system is designed for frequency division multiplexing of up to 1024 high quality factor resonances placed on a single microwave transmission line at unique frequencies within a 512 MHz bandwidth. We describe the design of the digital and analog signal processing chains for the implementation of a two-channel 2048-resonator system on the Xilinx ZCU111 RFSoC evaluation board in combination with a custom intermediate frequency (IF) system to convert the RFSoC band to higher frequencies up to 4 GHz. We also detail an associated software interface that provides a range of tools commonly utilized for characterizing KID resonators and for operating them as part of a photometric millimeter-wave imager. We additionally provide noise characterizations of the individual readout components, along with the complete readout system in isolation and in operation to readout KID resonators.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2608.02860,
title = {An Open Source RFSoC-based Readout Electronics System for Arrays of Kinetic Inductance Detectors and Superconducting Resonators},
author = {Cody Roberson and Nia McNichols and Jack Sayers and Sean Bryan and Daniel Cunnane and Peter K. Day and Fabien Defrance and Simon Hempel-Costello and Tracee Jamison-Hooks and Bradley R. Johnson and Maya Lee and Philip Mauskopf and Adrian Sinclair and Liam C. Walters and Eric Weeks},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.02860},
year = {2026}
}