Digital readouts for large microwave low-temperature detector arrays

Over the last several years many different types of low-temperature detectors (LTDs) have been developed that use a microwave resonant circuit as part of their readout. These devices include microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKID), microwave SQUID readouts for transition edge sensors (TES), and NIS bolometers. Current readout techniques for these devices use analog frequency synthesizers and IQ mixers. While these components are available as microwave integrated circuits, one set is required for each resonator. We are exploring a new readout technique for this class of detectors based on a commercial-off-the-shelf technology called software defined radio (SDR). In this method a fast digital to analog (D/A) converter creates as many tones as desired in the available bandwidth. Our prototype system employs a 100MS/s 16-bit D/A to generate an arbitrary number of tones in 50 MHz of bandwidth. This signal is then mixed up to the desired detector resonant frequency (similar to 10GHz), sent through the detector, then mixed back down to baseband. The baseband signal is then digitized with a series of fast analog to digital converters (80 MS/s, 14-bit). Next, a numerical mixer in a dedicated integrated circuit or FPGA mixes the resonant frequency of a specified detector to 0 Hz, and sends the complex detector Output over a computer bus for processing and storage. In this paper we will report on Our results in using a prototype system to readout a MKID array, including system noise performance, X-ray pulse response, and cross-talk measurements. We will also discuss how this technique can be scaled to read out many thousands of detectors. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.