Millimeter-wave & Terahertz camera

http://atc.mtk.nao.ac.jp/E/Projects/SubmmCamera/index_SubmmCamera_e.html

Copyright c 2012 Advanced Technology Center

Superconducting array detectors are a promising technology for radio astronomy. Existing radio receivers such as ALMA were a single pixel device. Development of CCD (charge coupled
device) image sensors has revolutionized optical and infrared astronomy. Likewise, a CCD-like millimeter camera is required for future radio astronomy. Indeed, intensity peaks are located
from the millimeter-wave to far-infrared (terahertz) region for thermal emission of the low temperature dust in the galaxies, redshifted dust radiation of distance galaxies and the 2.7 K
blackbody radiation from cosmic microwave background. Widefield observations of these objects are needless to say extremely important. This kind of millimeter to terahertz camera is essential not only for photometry but for spectroscopy with Fourier spectrometer or superconducting filter bank circuits. The microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) is an attractive detector technology. The surface impedance of a superconductor changes as incoming photons breaks Cooper pairs. This change is sensed by superconducting microwave resonators, which are capable of frequency domain multiplexing.