Photon noise from chaotic and coherent millimeter-wave sources measured with horn-coupled, aluminum lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors

• DOI: 10.1063/1.4942804
• Publication Date: 2016-02-25T18:00:39Z
• Authors: D. Flanigan; H. McCarrick; G. Jones; B. R. Johnson; M. H. Abitbol; P. Ade; D. Araujo; K. Bradford; R. Cantor; G. Che; P. Day; S. Doyle; C. B. Kjellstrand; H. Leduc; M. Limon; V. Luu; P. Mauskopf; A. Miller; T. Mroczkowski; C. Tucker; J. Zmuidzinas
• Keywords: Kinetic inductance; Quantum noise

We report photon-noise limited performance of horn-coupled, aluminum lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors at millimeter wavelengths. The are illuminated by a millimeter-wave source that uses an active multiplier chain to produce radiation between 140 and 160 GHz. feed the with either amplified broadband noise or continuous-wave tone from microwave signal generator. demonstrate detector response over 40 dB range power is well-described simple model considers number quasiparticles. noise-equivalent (NEP) dominated photon when absorbed greater than approximately 1 pW, which corresponds NEP≈2×10−17 W Hz−1/2, referenced power. At higher levels, we observe relationships expected statistics signal: NEP∝P for (chaotic) illumination NEP∝P1/2 (coherent) illumination.