Initial performance of the BICEP2 antenna-coupled superconducting bolometers at the South Pole.

• Published in: SPIE Proceedings, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy V
• Main Authors: Amiri, Mandana, Burger, Bryce, Halpern, Mark, Hasselfield, Matthew
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) 2010
• Subjects: South Pole; South pole
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/37252; https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857861

We report on the preliminary detector performance of the Bicep2 mm-wave polarimeter, deployed in 2009 to the South Pole. Bicep2 is currently imaging the polarization of the cosmic microwave background at 150 GHz using an array of 512 antenna-coupled superconducting bolometers. The antennas, band-defining filters and transition edge sensor (TES) bolometers are photolithographically fabricated on 4 silicon tiles. Each tile consists of an 8×8 grid of ~7 mm spatial pixels, for a total of 256 detector pairs. A spatial pixel contains 2 sets of orthogonal antenna slots summed in-phase, with each set coupled to a TES by a filtered microstrip. The detectors are read out using time-domain multiplexed SQUIDs. The detector pair of each spatial pixel is differenced to measure polarization. We report on the performance of the Bicep2 detectors in the field, including the focal plane yield, detector and multiplexer optimization, detector noise and stability, and a preliminary estimate of the improvement in mapping speed compared to Bicep1. Copyright 2010 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited. Science, Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, Department of Reviewed Faculty