The Simons Observatory: Differentiating Thermal and Optical Effects in Superconducting Transition-Edge Sensing Bolometers

The Simons Observatory aims to field 70,000 Transition-Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background. With so many detectors, rapid but accurate validation of their properties prior to their integration into telescopes is of particular importance. This paper describes an ex...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on applied superconductivity Vol. 33; no. 5; pp. 1 - 4
Main Authors Sonka, Rita F., Duff, Shannon M., Dutcher, Daniel, Staggs, Suzanne T.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York IEEE 01.08.2023
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Big Bang theory
Bolometers
Cosmic microwave background
Data collection
Detectors
Fitting
Microwave detectors
Observatories
Optical detectors
Optimized production technology
Parameters
satellites and large arrays
Sensors
superconducting detectors
superconducting device testing
Telescopes
Temperature distribution
temperature measurement
Thermal loading
thermal properties
Thermodynamic properties
transition-edge sensors (TES) devices
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The Simons Observatory aims to field 70,000 Transition-Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background. With so many detectors, rapid but accurate validation of their properties prior to their integration into telescopes is of particular importance. This paper describes an exploration of a new method to improve the simultaneous characterization of TES thermal parameters and bolometer optical efficiencies without significantly increasing the data collection time. The paper uses a special-purpose data set comprising current-voltage (IV) curves collected from thousands of TES bolometers with a variety of different average bath temperatures and different cold load temperatures. A subset of the bolometers were masked so they received no optical power. The new method fits data from the bath temperature ramp and cold load temperature ramps together as one set instead of fitting each independently. This enables thermal parameter assessment of the unmasked detectors without performing additional cooldowns of the cryostat, halving the time necessary to obtain thermal characterization of all detectors.
ISSN:1051-8223
1558-2515
DOI:10.1109/TASC.2023.3262495