Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are highly scalable detectors that have demonstrated nearly background-limited sensitivity in the far-infrared from high-altitude balloon-borne telescopes and space-like laboratory environments. In addition, the detectors have a rich design space with many optimizable parameters, allowing highly sensitive measurements over a wide dynamic range. For these reasons, MKIDs were chosen for the Experiment for Cryogenic Large-Aperture Intensity Mapping (EXCLAIM), a balloon-borne telescope targeting nearly background-limited performance in a high-altitude atmospheric environment from 420-540 GHz. We describe MKID optimization in the specific context of EXCLAIM and provide general results that apply to broader applications. Extending the established approach of tone frequency tracking, we show that readout power optimization enables significant, further improvement in dynamic range.
@article{arxiv.2204.13593,
title = {Operational Optimization to Maximize Dynamic Range in EXCLAIM Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors},
author = {Trevor M. Oxholm and Eric R. Switzer and Emily M. Barrentine and Thomas Essinger-Hileman and James P. Hays-Wehle and Philip D. Mauskopf and Omid Noroozian and Maryam Rahmani and Adrian K. Sinclair and Ryan Stephenson and Thomas R. Stevenson and Peter T. Timbie and Carolyn Volpert and Eric Weeks},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.13593},
year = {2022}
}