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IEICE Transactions on Electronics

Superconducting On-Chip Spectrometery for Millimeter-submillimeter Wave Astronomy

Akira Endo

Published Jan 1, 2015• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Since the birth of astrophysics, astronomers have been using free-space optics to analyze light falling on Earth. In the future however, thanks to the advances in photonics and nanoscience/nanotechnology, much of the manipulation of light might be carried out using not optics but confined waveguides, or circuits, on a chip. This new generation of instruments will be not only extremely compact, but also powerful in performance because the integration enables a greater degree of multiplexing. The benefit is especially profound for space- or air-borne observatories, where size, weight, and mechanical reliability are of top priority. Recently, several groups around the world are trying to integrate ultra-wideband (UWB), low-resolution spectrometers for millimeter-submillimeter waves onto microchips, using superconducting microelectronics. The scope of this Paper is to provide a general introduction and a review of the state-of-the-art of this rapidly advancing field.

DOI
10.1587/transele.e98.c.219

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Since the birth of astrophysics, astronomers have been using free-space optics to analyze light falling on Earth. In the future however, thanks to the advances in photonics and nanoscience/nanotechnology, much of the manipulation of light might be carried out using not optics but confined waveguides, or circuits, on a chip. This new generation of instruments will be not only extremely compact, but also powerful in performance because the integration enables a greater degree of multiplexing. The benefit is especially profound for space- or air-borne observatories, where size, weight, and mechanical reliability are of top priority. Recently, several groups around the world are trying to integrate ultra-wideband (UWB), low-resolution spectrometers for millimeter-submillimeter waves onto microchips, using superconducting microelectronics. The scope of this Paper is to provide a general introduction and a review of the state-of-the-art of this rapidly advancing field.
Superconducting integrated circuits (SICs) represent a natural step forward for devices operating at frequencies from microwave up to sub-millimeter wavelengths. They offer massive miniaturization via compact design based on low-loss superconducting transmission lines. At sub-millimeter wavelengths, the development of SICs is driven by astronomical instruments where it could allow the realization of an imaging spectrometer, combining simultaneous imaging and spectroscopy capabilities into a single instrument analogous to integral field units in the infrared and optical regimes. Such an imaging spectrometer can be achieved with SICs by integrating the required elements, such as spectral filters and polarizers, with the detectors onto a single chip. Without this integration, the dispersive system for even a single spatial pixel at these wavelengths would be prohibitively large and could not be realistically scaled up to allow imaging. Astronomical signals are exceedingly weak, typically requiring many nights of exposure to get a good signal to noise ratio. It is therefore imperative that the instrument has minimal losses before its detectors. As a consequence, the losses of each element in the SIC needs to be minimized, which requires careful characterization of the individual elements, including antenna, filters, detectors and connecting transmission lines. The primary focus of this thesis lies on the experimental characterization of the wideband antenna and the low-loss superconducting transmission lines.
Superconducting detectors will play an increasingly significant role in astrophysics, especially at millimeter through far-IR wavelengths, where the scientific opportunities include key problems in astronomy and cosmology. Superconducting detectors offer many benefits: outstanding sensitivity, lithographic fabrication, and large array sizes, especially through the recent development of multiplexing techniques. This paper describes the scientific opportunities, the basic physics of these devices, the techniques for radiation coupling, and reviews the recent progress in direct detectors, such as transition-edge bolometers, and the work on tunnel junction (superconductor-insulator-superconductor) and hot-electron mixers.
Compact mm/submm integrated spectrometers are required for radio-astronomical research, remote monitoring of the Earth atmosphere and environmental monitoring for hazardous materials of chemical and biological origin. Assembled on a multi-chip module the all superconducting integrated spectrometer offers integration of thin film analog components such as a mixer, superconducting local oscillator and an intermediate frequency SQUID amplifier together with superconducting digital circuitry. A Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) 128-bit autocorrelator formed by 16-bit autocorrelator and a 112-bit programmable shift register that adjusts the data delay in increments of 16, is used for digitizing of the down converted signals and real-time digital processing. Experimental results showing both operation of components and the way to their successful integration are presented.
This text describes in some detail the design and operational history of an instrument used as the front-end receiver for a fast, broadband, high-resolution spectrometer for the 1.3 millimeter wavelength atmospheric window. Using only a single superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) tunnel junction as its heterodyne detector, the receiver’s novel design achieved then unprecedented RF and IF bandwidths and incorporated several innovations which have since been widely adopted within the millimeter and submillimeter wave research communities. Although intended as a relatively simple technology demonstrator and starting point for more refined and sophisticated designs, the receiver turned out to be a useful astronomical instrument in its own right, and it was deployed as a de facto facility instrument for several years at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. Also described are the author’s contributions to another important aid to research and design efforts: the SuperMix software library for the analysis and optimization of high-frequency circuitry, especially developed to aid in the design of systems involving SIS and other superconducting elements. Finally, the text may serve as a useful introduction to the theory behind and methodology for modeling and design of SIS heterodyne mixers.
We present an on-chip superconducting filter bank spectrometer based on transition-edge sensors (TES) as a technology for realising a microwave atmospheric sounding instrument with several hundred channels and sky- noise limited performance. Each device consists of a wideband feed coupled to a transmission line filter bank, with a TES behind each filter. In the first instance we have targeted atmospheric temperature sounding using the oxygen (O2) absorption line at 60 GHz, however the device is being scaled to 180 GHz for humidity sounding. The technology developed is also generally applicable to astronomical instrumentation. We have fabricated a set of test devices to demonstrate key device technologies, such as channel placement, spectral resolution and sensitivity. We will describe device design, test configuration and results.
Sensitive heterodyne receivers are being built at ever higher frequencies with superconducting (SIS) junctions as the first mixer. These devices have extremely sharp non-linearities in their current-voltage characteristics as a result of quantum-mechanical tunneling of electrons across thin insulating barriers. The low energy scale set by the magnitude of the superconducting energy gap implies very low local oscillator power requirements for heterodyne operation. Some general system design considerations for astrophysical receivers are reviewed. These principles are illustrated by discussing two specific applications: a 230 GHz SIS receiver recently installed as a facility instrument at the Swedish-ESO submillimeter telescope in Chile, and the broader receiver requirements of the 6-antenna submillimeter array (SMA), an interferometer now being designed at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The SMA will require receivers at frequencies as high as 820 GHz, and will place some unique demands on detector performance.