SPACEKIDS, a European Union FP-7 project, has recently been completed. It has focused on developing kinetic inductance detector (KID) arrays and demonstrating their suitability for space applications at far infrared and submillimetre wavelengths. KID arrays have been developed for both low-background (typical of astrophysical applications) and high-background (typical of Earth-observation applications), based on performance specifications derived from the science requirements of representative potential future missions. KID pixel and array designs have been developed, together with readout electronics necessary to read out large numbers of pixels. Two laboratory demonstrator systems have been built and used for comprehensive evaluation of large-format array characteristics and performance in environments representative of both astronomy and Earth observing applications. We present an overview of the SPACEKIDS project and a summary of its main results and conclusions. ... Read more

An analytical spectral model able to accurately and efficiently characterize absorbers distributed in the focal plane of focusing THz systems is presented. The model is obtained by using a Fourier optics representation of the electromagnetic field in the focal plane in conjunction with a recently developed equivalent network representation for the interaction of plane waves with distributed absorbers. The model is validated by comparisons with numerical full-wave simulations. Finally, the model is used to design a few architectures based on lens-coupled Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs), which show high absorption efficiency over a large bandwidth. ... Read more