Development and Characterization of a MKID Camera for the Nobeyama Radio Observatory 45m Telescope

Abstract

The Advanced Technology Center (ATC) of NAOJ is developing a millimeter-wave camera with Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKID) for wide field of view observations. We made a prototype array for the 45m telescope of Nobeyama Radio Observatory, NAOJ. This design is a 90-110 GHz band camera composed of a silicon lens array coupled to double-slot antennas connected to MKIDs. In this paper, we report on the development of the Al MKIDs array that we fabricated and characterized. MKID internal quality factors Qi measured at 85 mK achieve values of 7x105. We present the temperature- and power-dependence of these quality factors and the temperature-dependence of the fractional frequency shift. Noise Power Spectrum Density shows an average level of -90 dBc/Hz on 1kHz-1MHz band. At the end of December 2016, the prototype has been installed on the 45m telescope of Nobeyama Radio Observatory (NRO). A test observation in real conditions gave us the possibility to verify and to calibrate the setup of the entire camera. We now plan to upgrade the camera up to a 110 pixels version before next year observations run.