Ultra-Thin Large-Aperture Vacuum Windows for Millimeter Wavelengths Receivers
Abstract
Targeting faint polarization patterns arising from Primordial Gravitational Waves in the Cosmic Microwave Background requires excellent observational sensitivity. Optical elements in small aperture experiments such as Bicep3 and Keck Array are designed to optimize throughput and minimize losses from transmission, reflection and scattering at millimeter wavelengths. As aperture size increases, cryostat vacuum windows must withstand larger forces from atmospheric pressure and the solution has often led to a thicker window at the expense of larger transmission loss. We have identified a new candidate material for the fabrication of vacuum windows: with a tensile strength two orders of magnitude larger than previously used materials, woven high-modulus polyethylene could allow for dramatically thinner windows, and therefore significantly reduced losses and higher sensitivity. In these proceedings we investigate the suitability of high-modulus polyethylene windows for ground-based CMB experiments, such as current and future receivers in the Bicep/Keck Array program. This includes characterizing their optical transmission as well as their mechanical behavior under atmospheric pressure. We find that such ultra-thin materials are promising candidates to improve the performance of large-aperture instruments at millimeter wavelengths, and outline a plan for further tests ahead of a possible upcoming field deployment of such a science-grade window.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.1808.00570,
title = {Ultra-Thin Large-Aperture Vacuum Windows for Millimeter Wavelengths Receivers},
author = {Denis Barkats and Marion I. Dierickx and John M. Kovac and Chris Pentacoff and P. A. R. Ade and Z. Ahmed and R. W. Aikin and K. D. Alexander and S. J. Benton and C. A. Bischof and J. J. Bock and R. Bowens-Rubin and J. A. Brevik and I. Buder and E. Bullock and V. Buza and J. Connors and J. Cornelison and B. P. Crill and M. Crumrine and L. Duband and C. Dvorkin and J. P. Filippini and S. Fliescher and J. Grayson and G. Hall and M. Halpern and S. Harrison and S. R. Hildebrandt and G. C. Hilton and H. Hui and K. D. Irwin and J. Kang and K. S. Karkare and E. Karpel and J. P. Kaufman and B. G. Keating and S. Kefeli and S. A. Kernasovskiy and C. L. Kuo and K. Lau and N. A. Larsen and E. M. Leitch and M. Lueker and K. G. Megerian and L. Moncelsi and T. Namikawa and H. T. Nguyen and R. O'Brient and R. W. Ogburn and S. Palladino and C. Pryke and B. Racine and S. Richter and R. Schwarz and A. Schillaci and C. D. Sheehy and A. Soliman and T. St. Germaine and Z. K. Staniszewski and B. Steinbach and R. V. Sudiwala and G. P. Teply and K. L. Thompson and J. E. Tolan and C. Tucker and A. D. Turner and C. Umilta and A. G. Vieregg and A. Wandui and A. C. Weber and D. V. Wiebe and J. Willmert and C. L. Wong and W. L. K. Wu and H. Yang and K. W. Yoon and C. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1808.00570},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
Published in Proc. SPIE. Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Conference 10708: Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy XI, June 2018. 14 pages, 7 figures