Seminar: " DESHIMA: A Dutch-Japanese Astronomical Spectrometer based on Superconducting Microwave Resonators"

DESHIMA: A Dutch-Japanese Astronomical Spectrometer based on Superconducting Microwave Resonators

Akira Endo, Associate Prof. PhD., Delft University of Technology, Netherland

Superconducting microwave resonators are sensitive to small changes in the inductance, making them useful for astronomy, quantum computing, and solid-state physics. In astronomy, the microwave resonator itself is used as a kinetic inductance detector (KID), which translates incoming optical power into a shift in resonance frequency (when a photon breaks a Cooper pair, the kinetic inductance of the superconducting film increases, causing a downshift of the resonance frequency.) In the Terahertz Sensing group of TU Delft, we are pioneering a new type of astronomical spectrometer called the on-chip filterbank spectrometer, which is based on KID technology and offers ultra-wide bandwidth in the millimeter-submillimeter band. Our first astronomical instrument baed on this technology is DESHIMA (DEep Spectroscopic HIgh-redshift MApper), covering 220-440 GHz in a single shot. The first prototype of DESHIMA was tested on the Japanese ASTE telescope in Chile [1], where we plan to conduct astronomical science operation from 2023. In my presentation I plan to introduce the basic principles and applications of KIDs, the device technology (for example superconducting NbTiN thin films and electron-beam lithography), and seek for possible areas we could collaborate with researchers at OIST.

DESHIMA is a collaboration between Dutch (TU Delft, SRON, Leiden University) and Japanese (University of Tokyo, Nagoya University, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Kitami Institute of Technology) universities and institutions.

[1] Endo et al., “First light demonstration of the integrated superconducting spectrometer,” Nature Astronomy 3, 989–996 (2019)