Abstract
We are developing athermal-phonon mediated particle detectors using microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) as the phonon sensing elements. Since MKIDs are easily multiplexed, hundreds of sensors patterned on a single dielectric substrate can be read out simultaneously, leading to a precise, time-resolved measurement of the phonon flux at each point on the detector surface. In addition to providing a high-resolution measurement of the location of the interaction, the energy deposited by the particle can be reconstructed with an expected baseline resolution of tens of eV. The complexity of the cryogenic readout electronics is significantly reduced relative to designs based on multiplexed transition edge sensors (TES). Initial proof-of-principle devices demonstrate energy resolutions as good as 0.7 keV at 30 keV, dominated by the position dependence of the phonon signal. New designs are aimed at improving this resolution by more than an order of magnitude. Such high-resolution phonon mediated detectors would have applications including direct detection of dark matter, hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray astrophysics, neutrinoless double beta decay, and coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
P. Brink et al., These proceedings (2011)
A. Giuliani, These proceedings (2011)
E. Figueroa-Feliciano et al., These proceedings (2011)
D.C. Moore et al., LTD-13. AIP Conf. Proc. 1185, 168 (2009)
S. Golwala et al., J. Low Temp. Phys. 151, 550 (2008)
B.A. Mazin et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 222507 (2006)
S. Doyle et al., J. Low Temp. Phys. 151, 530 (2008)
J. Gao et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 102507 (2007)
J. Gao, PhD thesis, California Institute of Technology (2008)
H.G. Leduc et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 102509 (2010)
P.K. Day et al., Nature (London) 425, 817 (2003)
D.C. Mattis, J. Bardeen, Phys. Rev. 111, 412 (1958)
R. Duan et al., Proc. SPIE 7741, 7741V (2010)
L.J. Swenson et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 263511 (2010)
Z. Ahmed et al., Science 327, 1619 (2010)
R. Barends et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 223502 (2008)
Acknowledgements
This research was carried out in part at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The devices used in this work were fabricated at the JPL Microdevices Laboratory. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, NASA grant NNX10AC83G, and the Keck Institute for Space Studies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moore, D.C., Golwala, S., Bumble, B. et al. Phonon Mediated Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors. J Low Temp Phys 167, 329–334 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-011-0434-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-011-0434-1