Speaker
Description
The Probe Far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) is a probe-class space observatory currently under Phase A study by NASA. PRIMA’s cryogenically cooled primary mirror promises orders-of-magnitude improvements in mapping speed over its predecessors in far-infrared astronomy, Herschel and Spitzer. Arrays of microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) with noise equivalent powers of less than 0.1 aW per sqrt(Hz), which can take full advantage of the sensitivity offered by the cold optics, have been demonstrated for PRIMA. To preserve this sensitivity in the space environment, we must demonstrate that the sensitivity does not degrade under the fluence of energetic particles the detectors will experience during the mission. In this poster, I present an experiment in which we use alpha particles to controllably irradiate an MKID array to several times the predicted mission displacement damage dose (DDD) of PRIMA, all while the array is held at its operating temperature of 125 mK. We measure the lifetime of quasiparticle excitations, which determine the response of the detector to optical power, and the detector noise power spectra before and after irradiation, finding no degradation in either parameter.
