English

Demonstration of 220/280 GHz Multichroic Feedhorn-Coupled TES Polarimeter

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2020-01-29 v2

Abstract

We describe the design and measurement of feedhorn-coupled, transition-edge sensor (TES) polarimeters with two passbands centered at 220 GHz and 280 GHz, intended for observations of the cosmic microwave background. Each pixel couples polarized light in two linear polarizations by use of a planar orthomode transducer and senses power via four TES bolometers, one for each band in each linear polarization. Previous designs of this detector architecture incorporated passbands from 27 GHz to 220 GHz; we now demonstrate this technology at frequencies up to 315 GHz. Observational passbands are defined with an on-chip diplexer, and Fourier-transform-spectrometer measurements are in excellent agreement with simulations. We find coupling from feedhorn to TES bolometer using a cryogenic, temperature-controlled thermal source. We determine the optical efficiency of our device is η\eta = 77%±\pm6% (75%±\pm5%) for 220 (280) GHz, relative to the designed passband shapes. Lastly, we compare two power-termination schemes commonly used in wide-bandwidth millimeter-wave polarimeters and find equal performance in terms of optical efficiency and passband shape.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1909.11569,
  title  = {Demonstration of 220/280 GHz Multichroic Feedhorn-Coupled TES Polarimeter},
  author = {Samantha Walker and Carlos E. Sierra and Jason E. Austermann and James A. Beall and Daniel T. Becker and Bradley J. Dober and Shannon M. Duff and Gene C. Hilton and Johannes Hubmayr and Jeffrey L. Van Lanen and Jeffrey J. McMahon and Sara M. Simon and Joel N. Ullom and Michael R. Vissers},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.11569},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Proceedings for the 18th International Workshop on Low Temperature Detectors (LTD18), submitted to the Journal of Low Temperature Physics