49 “Shades of Infrared”

Successfully implementation of a superconducting IR spectrometer!

We are very proud that our TeraScan has enabled the characterization of an astro-spectrometer in Chile: A team of Dutch and Japanese researchers, led by Akira Endo (University of Delft, Netherlands), successfully implemented a superconducting IR spectrometer at the Japanese ASTE (Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment) radio telescope in Chile. The new instrument combines microwave kinetic inductance detectors with superconducting filters to measure 49 “shades of infrared”, i.e. frequencies between 332-377 GHz, in order to determine the redshift of distant galaxies. The frequency response of the IR spectrometer was tested with a TeraScan-1550 system from TOPTICA Photonics.
Further reading: Endo et al., “Wideband on-chip terahertz spectrometer based on a superconducting filterbank”, J. of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems, 5(3), 035004 (2019).

Image: ASTE telescope in North Chile, credits NAOJ