Millimeter-Wavelength Lens-Absorber-Coupled Ti/Al Kinetic Inductance Detectors

Journal Article (2026)
Author(s)

Alejandro Pascual Laguna (Centro de Astrobiología - CSIC-INTA, TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

Victor Rollano (Centro de Astrobiología - CSIC-INTA)

Aimar Najarro-Fiandra (Universidad de Alcalá)

David Rodriguez (Centro de Astrobiología - CSIC-INTA)

Maria T. Magaz (Centro de Astrobiología - CSIC-INTA)

Daniel Granados (Instituto Madrilenõ de Estudios Avanzados en Nanociencia (IMDEA-Nanociencia))

Alicia Gomez (Centro de Astrobiología - CSIC-INTA)

Research Group
Tera-Hertz Sensing
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2026.3665923 Final published version
More Info
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Publication Year
2026
Language
English
Research Group
Tera-Hertz Sensing
Journal title
IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
Issue number
6
Volume number
36
Article number
2400808
Downloads counter
14
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Abstract

This work presents Ti/Al bilayer microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) based on lens-coupled spiral absorbers as the quasi-optical coupling mechanism for millimeter-wavelength radiation detection. From simulations, the lens-coupled absorbers provide a 70% lens aperture efficiency in both polarizations over an octave band with a spiral array absorber and over 10% relative bandwidth with a single spiral. We have fabricated and measured two devices with bare Ti/Al MKIDs: a 3× 3 ,cm chip with 9 pixels to characterize the optical response at 85 ,GHz of the two variations of the absorber; and a large format demonstrator with 253 spiral-array pixels showing potential toward a large format millimeter-wavelength camera. We estimate a sensitivity of 1 ,mK/Hz and a 95% detector yield.

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