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A Polarization Sensitive Bolometric Receiver for Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background

Jones, W. C. and Bhatia, R. S. and Bock, J. J. and Lange, A. E. (2003) A Polarization Sensitive Bolometric Receiver for Observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background. In: Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors for Astronomy. Proceedings of SPIE. No.4855. Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) , Bellingham, WA, pp. 227-238. ISBN 9780819446343. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190115-132717997

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Abstract

We have developed a bolometric receiver that is intrinsically sensitive to linear polarization for the purpose of making measurements of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The receiver consists of a pair of co-located silicon nitride micromesh absorbers which couple anisotropically to linearly polarized radiation through a corrugated waveguide structure. This system allows background limited, simultaneous measurement of the Stokes I and Q parameters over ~30% bandwidths at frequencies from ~60 to 600 GHz. Since both linear polarizations traverse identical optical paths from the sky to the point of detection, the susceptibility of the system to systematic effects is minimized. The amount of uncorrelated noise between the two polarization senses is limited to the quantum limit of thermal and photon shot noise, while drifts in the relative responsivity to orthogonal polarizations are limited to the effect of non-uniformity in the thin film deposition of the leads and the intrinsic thermistor properties. Devices using NTD Ge thermistors have achieved NEPs of 2•10^(-17) W/√Hz with 1/f knees below 100mHz at a base temperature of 270 mK. Numerical modelling of the structures has been used to optimize the bolometer geometry and coupling to optics. Comparisons of numerical results and experimental data are made. A description of how the quantities measured by the device can be interpreted in terms of the Stokes parameters is presented. The receiver developed for the Boomerang and Planck HFI focal planes is presented in detail.


Item Type:Book Section
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.459194DOIArticle
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Bock, J. J.0000-0002-5710-5212
Additional Information:© 2003 Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). The authors would like to acknowledge Peter Ade and Carole Tucker, who kindly provided the optical filters for the development program. Tom Montroy and Ted Kisner provided invaluable information about the performance of the PSBs installed in the Boomerang focal plane, and Eric Torbet has measured the polarized spectra of the PSBs integrated in the Boomerang focal plane. WCJ would like to thank Kathy Deniston for facilitating this development effort, Goutam Chattopadhyay for his useful comments on the use of the HFSS software package, and Jonas Zmuidzinas and Marcus Runyan for helpful discussions. Thanks to Paolo deBernardis for making the authors aware of the early work of Caderni, et al. RSB is currently with the European Space Agency, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands. William Jones is supported through NASA GSRP fellowship NGT5-50278.
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
NASA Graduate Student Research FellowshipNGT5-50278
Subject Keywords:Sub-mm Detectors, Bolometers, Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization, Cosmology
Series Name:Proceedings of SPIE
Issue or Number:4855
DOI:10.1117/12.459194
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20190115-132717997
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190115-132717997
Official Citation:William C. Jones, Ravinder Bhatia, James J. Bock, Andrew E. Lange, "Polarization-sensitive bolometric receiver for observations of the cosmic microwave background," Proc. SPIE 4855, Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors for Astronomy, (17 February 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.459194
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:92288
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: Tony Diaz
Deposited On:15 Jan 2019 21:35
Last Modified:16 Nov 2021 03:48

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