Design and characterization of 90 GHz feedhorn-coupled TES polarimeter pixels in the SPTPol camera

• Published in: SPIE Proceedings, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy VI
• Main Authors: Sayre, J. T., Lueker, M., Shirokoff, E., Vieira, J. D.
• Other Authors: Holland, Wayne S., Zmuidzinas, J.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) 2012
• Subjects: SPTpol; CMB polarization; 90 GHz; transition edge sensor; microwave polarimeter; Canada; South Pole; Kavli; South pole
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.927035

The SPTpol camera is a two-color, polarization-sensitive bolometer receiver, and was installed on the 10 meter South Pole Telescope in January 2012. SPTpol is designed to study the faint polarization signals in the Cosmic Microwave Background, with two primary scientific goals. One is to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio of perturbations in the primordial plasma, and thus constrain the space of permissible in inflationary models. The other is to measure the weak lensing effect of large-scale structure on CMB polarization, which can be used to constrain the sum of neutrino masses as well as other growth-related parameters. The SPTpol focal plane consists of seven 84-element monolithic arrays of 150 GHz pixels (588 total) and 180 individual 90 GHz single- pixel modules. In this paper we present the design and characterization of the 90 GHz modules. © 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Work at Case Western Reserve University, the University of California - Berkeley, the University of Colorado-Boulder, and the University of Chicago is supported by grants from the NSF (awards ANT-0638937 and PHY-0114422), the Kavli Foundation, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Work at Argonne National Lab is supported by UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory ("Argonne"). Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Laboratory, is operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. We would also like to acknowledge support from the Argonne Center for Nanoscale Materials. The McGill authors acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and Canada Research Chairs program. Matt Dobbs acknowledges support from an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. Published - 845239.pdf Submitted - 1210.4968v1.pdf