A 25-micrometer Single-Photon-Sensitive Kinetic Inductance Detector

Creators: Day, Peter K.¹; Cothard, Nicholas F.²; Albert, Christopher³; Foote, Logan³; Kane, Elijah³; Eom, Byeong H.¹; Basu Thakur, Ritoban¹; Janssen, Reinier M. J.¹; Beyer, Andrew¹; Echternach, Pierre M.¹; van Berkel, Sven¹; Hailey-Dunsheath, Steven³; Stevenson, Thomas R.²; Dabironezare, Shahab⁴; Baselmans, Jochem J. A.⁴; Glenn, Jason²; Bradford, C. Matt^{1, 3}; Leduc, Henry G.¹

1. Jet Propulsion Lab
2. Goddard Space Flight Center
3. California Institute of Technology
4. Netherlands Institute for Space Research

Abstract

We report measurements characterizing the performance of a kinetic inductance detector array designed for a wavelength of 25 microns and very low optical background level suitable for applications such as a far-infrared instrument on a cryogenically cooled space telescope. In a pulse-counting mode of operation at low optical flux, the detectors can resolve individual 25-micron photons. In an integrating mode, the detectors remain photon noise limited over more than 6 orders of magnitude in absorbed power from 70 zW to 200 fW, with a limiting noise equivalent power of 4.6×10−20 W Hz−1 at 1 Hz. In addition, the detectors are highly stable with flat power spectra under optical load down to 1 mHz. Operational parameters of the detector are determined including the efficiency of conversion of the incident optical power into quasiparticles in the aluminum absorbing element and the quasiparticle self-recombination constant.

Copyright and License

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Acknowledgement

The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). We acknowledge support from the NASA Strategic Astrophysics Technology (SAT) program under Grant No. 141108.04.02.01.70 to C. M. B. et al. The authors thank Manuel Quijada, Jessica Patel, Nick Costen, Christine Jhabvala, Ian Schrock, Fred Wang, and Ed Wollack of the NASA GSFC microlens team and Johannes Staguhn for a critical reading of the manuscript.. The microlens fabrication and hybridization and the FTS measurements were supported in part by internal research and development awards at NASA GSFC. N. F. C. was supported by an NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowship at NASA GSFC, administered by ORAU.

Files

PhysRevX.14.041005.pdf

Files (5.9 MB)

Name	Size	Download all
PhysRevX.14.041005.pdf md5:3b7e6d6fa59c8f0037fb3e930ca153e4	5.9 MB	Preview Download

Additional details

	All versions	This version
Views	0	0
Downloads	0	0
Data volume	0 Bytes	0 Bytes