Proceedings Article | 19 August 2014
Proc. SPIE. 9153, Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy VII
KEYWORDS: Thermography, Telescopes, Mirrors, Receivers, Polarizers, Heterodyning, Terahertz radiation, Aluminum, Computer aided design, Cryogenics
The 1.1 THz multi-pixel heterodyne receiver will be mounted in the Nasmyth A cabin of the 12 m APEX telescope on the Chajnantor plateau, 5000 meters altitude in northern Chile. The receiver will cover the spectral window of 1000 - 1080 GHz, where important spectral lines like CO 9-8 at 1036.9 GHz, a tracer of warm and dense gas and OH+ at 1033 GHz and NH+ at 1012.6 GHz, both important for the study of chemical networks in the ISM, are located. The multi-pixel receiver greatly enhances the science output under the difficult observing conditions in this frequency range. Two 9-pixel focal plane sub-arrays on orthogonal polarizations are installed in easily removable cartridges. We developed a new thermal link to connect the cartridges to the cryostat. Our thermal link is an all-metal design: aluminum and Invar. All the optics is fully reflective, thus avoiding the absorption and reflection losses of dielectric lenses and reducing standing waves in the receiver. To guaranty internal optics alignment, we employ a monolithic integrated optics approach for the cold optics and the Focal Plane Unit (FPU) optics modeled after the CHARM (Compact Heterodyne Array Receiver Module) concept. The receiver uses synthesizer-driven solid-state local oscillators (LO) and the mixers will be balanced SIS mixers, which are essentially based on the design of the on-chip balanced SIS mixers at 490 GHz developed in our institute. Singleended HEB mixers are used for the laboratory tests of the optics. The LO power distribution is accommodated behind the FPU optics. It is composed of the LO optics, which includes a collimating Fourier grating, and an LO distribution plate to supply LO signal to each of the 9 pixels of the sub-array. Different options for the LO coupling design and fabrication are being analyzed and will be based on in-house hybrid waveguide/planar technology. We summarize the receiver project with emphasis on the cryogenics and the optics and present laboratory test results of the cryogenics, including the thermal link's performance. Beam pattern measurements of the receiver optics are scheduled for the coming days, but unfortunately could not be included in the current paper.
