The kinetic inductance detectors for the MISTRAL instrument: Installation and characterization at the Sardinia Radio Telescope
The MISTRAL instrument, a cryogenic W-band camera equipped with 415 lumped element kinetic inductance detectors, achieved a significant milestone in May 2023 with its successful installation at the Gregorian focus of the Sardinia Radio Telescope, a 64 m aperture telescope in Italy. MISTRAL features a focal plane of approximately 94.4 mm in diameter, providing an instantaneous field of view of about 4 arcmin. To maintain the telescope’s angular resolution of ∼ 12 arcsec , the focal plane has been over-sampled with pixels separated by 4.2 mm, meaning a pixel separation of approximately 10.6 arcsec. The lumped element kinetic inductance detectors in MISTRAL are made of a titanium–aluminum bilayer, 10 + 30 nm thick, on a 100 mm-diameter Silicon wafer, 235 µm thick. The detectors are designed to have 415 resonances over a ∼ 500 MHz bandwidth, to work in a temperature range of 200 to 240 mK, and to be sensitive in the W-band. In this contribution, we present the preliminary characterization of the MISTRAL detectors at the Sardinia Radio Telescope, comparing their performance to measurements conducted in the laboratory.
Authors
- Alessandro Carbone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3383-8948)
- E. S. Battistelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5210-7625)
- A. Navarrini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6191-6958)
- Valentina Capalbo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1668-3403)
- A. Paiella
- I. Porceddu
- Tonino Pisanu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2510-7501)
- A. Novelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8619-2377)
- A. Occhiuzzi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5020-631X)
- F. Piacentini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5444-9327)
- E. Carretti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3973-8403)
- Giovanni Isopi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8458-0588)
- P. Marongiu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0314-7801)
- S. Masi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5105-1439)
- G. D’Alessandro
- A. Orlati (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8737-255X)
- A. Coppolecchia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4522-5214)
- M. De Petris (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7859-2139)
- S. Poppi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4698-2607)
- M. R. Schirru
- A. Ritacco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0162-8206)
- F. Govoni (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3644-3084)
- A. Cruciani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2247-8067)
- F. Columbro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2404-1056)
- E. Barbavara (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2011-9012)
- E. Molinari (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1742-7735)
- Giorgio Pettinari (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0187-3770)
- Gian Paolo Vargiu
- P. de Bernardis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6547-6446)
- F. Cacciotti
- M. Murgia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4800-0806)
- A. Mascia
- D. Ciccalotti
- L. Lamagna
Institutions
- University of Rome Tor Vergata (IT)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (IT)
- Istituto di Radioastronomia di Bologna (IT)
- Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari (IT)
- Sapienza University of Rome (IT)
- National Institute for Astrophysics (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment
- Published
- 2025-03-06
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2025.170373
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Superconducting and THz Device Technology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.15
Funders
- Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca