Recent Achievements on the Development of the HERSCHEL/PACS Bolometer arrays

AbstractA new type of bolometer arrays sensitive in the far Infrared and Submillimeter rangehasbeen developed and manufactured by CEA/LETI/SLIRsince1997. Thesearrayswill be integrated in the PACS instrument (Photodetector Array Camera and Spec-trometer) of ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory (launch date 2007). The main inno-vations of CEA bolometers are their collective manufacturing technique (productionof 3-side buttable 16x16 arrays) and their high mapping efficiency (large format de-tector and instantaneous Nyquist sampling). The measured NEP is 2.10 −16 W/√Hzand the thermometric passband about 4 − 5Hz. In this article we describe CEAbolometers and present the results obtained during the last test campaign. Key words: Submillimeter astronomy, Filled bolometer arrays, All-Si design,Multiplexed readout, monolithic array, NEP 1 IntroductionThe Herschel Mission stands as the next great step in FIR and submillime-ter astronomy. This huge satellite will hold three scientific instruments (HIFI,SPIRE and PACS (1)) and the largest telescope ever sent in space (3.5m in