Photon Noise From Chaotic and Coherent Millimeter-Wave Sources Measured With Horn-Coupled, Aluminum Lumped-Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors
We report photon-noise limited performance of horn-coupled, aluminum lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors at millimeter wavelengths. The detectors are illuminated by a millimeter-wave source that uses an active multiplier chain to produce radiation between 140 and 160 GHz. We feed the multiplier with either amplified broadband noise or a continuous-wave tone from a microwave signal generator. We demonstrate that the detector response over a 40 dB range of source power is well-described by a simple model that considers the number of quasiparticles. The detector noise-equivalent power (NEP) is dominated by photon noise when the absorbed power is greater than approximately 1 pW, which corresponds to NEP ≈ 2 × 10-17 W Hz-1/2, referenced to absorbed power. At higher source power levels, we observe the relationships between noise and power expected from the photon statistics of the source signal: NEP ∝ P for broadband (chaotic) illumination and NEP ∝ P1/2 for continuous-wave (coherent) illumination.
- Author (aut): Flanigan, D.
- Author (aut): McCarrick, H.
- Author (aut): Jones, G.
- Author (aut): Johnson, B. R.
- Author (aut): Abitbol, M. H.
- Author (aut): Ade, P.
- Author (aut): Araujo, D.
- Author (aut): Bradford, K.
- Author (aut): Cantor, R.
- Author (aut): Che, George
- Author (aut): Day, P.
- Author (aut): Doyle, S.
- Author (aut): Kjellstrand, C. B.
- Author (aut): Leduc, H.
- Author (aut): Limon, M.
- Author (aut): Luu, V.
- Author (aut): Mauskopf, Philip
- Author (aut): Miller, A.
- Author (aut): Mroczkowski, T.
- Author (aut): Tucker, C.
- Author (aut): Zmuidzinas, J.
- Contributor (ctb): College of Liberal Arts and Sciences