TY - JOUR
T1 - The MUSCAT Readout Electronics Backend
T2 - Design and Pre-deployment Performance
AU - Rowe, S.
AU - Tapia, M.
AU - Barry, P. S.
AU - Karkare, K. S.
AU - Papageorgiou, A.
AU - Ade, P. A.R.
AU - Brien, T. L.R.
AU - Castillo-Domínguez, E.
AU - Ferrusca, D.
AU - Gómez-Rivera, V.
AU - Hargrave, P.
AU - Hernández-Rebollar, J. L.
AU - Hornsby, A.
AU - Jáuregui-García, J. M.
AU - Mauskopf, P.
AU - Murias, D.
AU - Pascale, E.
AU - Pérez, A.
AU - Smith, M. W.L.
AU - Tucker, C.
AU - Velázquez, M.
AU - Ventura, S.
AU - Hughes, D. H.
AU - Doyle, S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge RCUK and CONACYT through the Newton Fund (Grant No. ST/P002803/1), CONACYT for supporting the fellowship for the instrument scientist (Grant No. 053), Chase Research Cryogenics for the development of the sub-kelvin coolers and XILINX Inc. for the donation of the FPGAs.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Crown.
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - MUSCAT is a new large-format 1.1 mm continuum camera for local and extra-galactic astronomy currently being installed at the 50 m Large Millimetre Telescope Alfonso Serrano, LMT. The focal plane is populated with 1458 feedhorn coupled Aluminium LEKIDs, cooled to 130 mk, and read out with 6 frequency division multiplexed RF readout chains, each with a 500 MHz bandwidth. The nominal mux ratio is ∼ 250 resonators per chain with an average spacing of 2 MHz between resonators. In each RF chain, the multiplexed waveform generation/decomposition is performed with the BLAST-TNG firmware on a ROACH2 FPGA board with a MUSIC DAC/ADC. The quadrature modulated IF signals are mixed to and from the LEKID readout band on a custom card that houses IQ mixers, a programmable synthesizer, and additional programmable input and output gain control and filtering. Within the cryostat, the RF signals are attenuated prior to reaching the focal plane array and then amplified at 4K. A novel software system controls all the programmable hardware and handles instructions from the LMT instrument control system to record and store observation data, as well as performing automated resonator retuning and providing results of quick look analysis to the telescope operators. In this paper, we present the detailed design and in-lab performance of the cryogenic and room temperature electronics, and the software control system.
AB - MUSCAT is a new large-format 1.1 mm continuum camera for local and extra-galactic astronomy currently being installed at the 50 m Large Millimetre Telescope Alfonso Serrano, LMT. The focal plane is populated with 1458 feedhorn coupled Aluminium LEKIDs, cooled to 130 mk, and read out with 6 frequency division multiplexed RF readout chains, each with a 500 MHz bandwidth. The nominal mux ratio is ∼ 250 resonators per chain with an average spacing of 2 MHz between resonators. In each RF chain, the multiplexed waveform generation/decomposition is performed with the BLAST-TNG firmware on a ROACH2 FPGA board with a MUSIC DAC/ADC. The quadrature modulated IF signals are mixed to and from the LEKID readout band on a custom card that houses IQ mixers, a programmable synthesizer, and additional programmable input and output gain control and filtering. Within the cryostat, the RF signals are attenuated prior to reaching the focal plane array and then amplified at 4K. A novel software system controls all the programmable hardware and handles instructions from the LMT instrument control system to record and store observation data, as well as performing automated resonator retuning and providing results of quick look analysis to the telescope operators. In this paper, we present the detailed design and in-lab performance of the cryogenic and room temperature electronics, and the software control system.
KW - Astronomy instrumentation
KW - Kinetic inductance detectors
KW - Millimetre astronomy
KW - Multiplexing readout electronics
KW - Submillimetre astronomy
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U2 - 10.1007/s10909-022-02868-9
DO - 10.1007/s10909-022-02868-9
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85143220958
SN - 0022-2291
VL - 211
SP - 289
EP - 301
JO - Journal of Low Temperature Physics
JF - Journal of Low Temperature Physics
IS - 5-6
ER -