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Completed TRL 2 (started at 2, targeting 3)
The goal of the proposed research is the development of Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) into not only a viabledetector technology, but a powerful one with high spectral resolution and individual photon counting. MKIDs use superconductingmetals in resonating circuits to measure incident photons via a change in the impedance of the superconducting absorber. This changein the impedance alters the phase and amplitude of the resonant circuit, allowing for the photon’s energy and arrival time to bemeasured. Currently, MKID spectral resolution is limited by ballistic phonon escape, where high energy phonons carrying informationabout the detected photon escape into the substrate of the detectors, where it is lost. The number of phonons escaping is stochastic butdoes depend on the distance from the superconductor-substrate interface. This project aims to eliminate this ballistic phonon escapeby introducing a superconducting metal layer (interlayer) in between the absorber and the substrate. This layer aims to reduce phononescape by altering the acoustic properties of the superconductor-substrate interface. Because the intermediate layer proximitizes tothe original absorber via the superconducting proximity effect, no signal is lost when phonons enter the interlayer. This project alsoaims to reduce amplifier noise and two-level system noise in the MKIDs by incorporating a parametric amplifier and by modifyinginterdigitated capacitor geometry, respectively. These changes should bring the spectral resolution of Hafnium MKIDs to R>25 at awavelength of 1 micron after two years. The theoretical limit of the spectral resolution for these detectors is at R ~100 at 1 micron,and later in the project we hope to approach this limit through continued evolution of the MKID design, fabrication, and readout.Improving the resolution of MKIDs allows for the precise detection of single photon energies. With this technology, we could notonly detect low contrast exoplanets, but also characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets, aiding in the search for extraterrestriallife. As MKIDs also have a wide variety of applications in other astronomical fields, like dark matter detection, CMB research, andneutrino detection, improving their performance will lead to breakthroughs across a wide variety of astrophysical phenomena. Thedevelopment of Detectors and Focal Planes falls under TABS element 8.1.1.
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