Design and Fabrication of Two-Dimensional Superconducting Bolometer Arrays

Large format, two dimensional arrays of close-packed bolometers will enable submillimeter cameras and spectrometers to obtain images and spectra orders of magnitude faster than present instruments. The South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer (SPIFI) for the AST/RO observatory and the Submillimeter and Far-InfraRed Experiment (SAFIRE) on the SOFIA airborne observatory will employ a large-format, two-dimensional, close-packed bolometer arrays. Both these instruments are imaging Fabry-Perot spectrometers operating at wavelengths between 100μm and 700μm. The array format is 16×32 pixels, using a 32-element multiplexer developed in part for this purpose. The low backgrounds achieved in spectroscopy require very sensitive detectors with NEPs of order (formula available in paper). Superconducting detectors can be close-packed using the Pop-Up Detector (PUD) format, and SQUID multiplexers operating at the detector bas temperature can be intimately coupled to them. We have fabricated and assembled an engineering model array of close-packed bolometers with a multiplexed readout that features a very compact, modular approach for large format arrays.