Broadband anti-reflective coatings for cosmic microwave background experiments

TL;DR

This paper presents a broadband, cryogenically stable, three-layer anti-reflective coating for mm-wave lenses used in cosmic microwave background experiments, improving transmission and sensitivity.

Contribution

Developed a simple, inexpensive, three-layer PTFE-based AR coating suitable for large, high-refractive-index mm-wave optics in CMB experiments.

Findings

Successfully field tested on SPT-3G focal plane elements.

Achieved broadband anti-reflective performance in the 2016-2018 deployments.

Coating is cost-effective and easy to manufacture.

Abstract

The desire for higher sensitivity has driven ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments to employ ever larger focal planes, which in turn require larger reimaging optics. Practical limits to the maximum size of these optics motivates the development of quasi-optically-coupled (lenslet-coupled), multi-chroic detectors. These detectors can be sensitive across a broader bandwidth compared to waveguide-coupled detectors. However, the increase in bandwidth comes at a cost: the lenses (up to $\sim$700 mm diameter) and lenslets ($\sim$5 mm diameter, hemispherical lenses on the focal plane) used in these systems are made from high-refractive-index materials (such as silicon or amorphous aluminum oxide) that reflect nearly a third of the incident radiation. In order to maximize the faint CMB signal that reaches the detectors, the lenses and lenslets must be coated with an anti-reflective (AR) material. The AR coating must maximize radiation transmission in scientifically interesting bands and be cryogenically stable. Such a coating was developed for the third generation camera, SPT-3G, of the South Pole Telescope (SPT) experiment, but the materials and techniques used in the development are general to AR coatings for mm-wave optics. The three-layer polytetrafluoroethylene-based AR coating is broadband, inexpensive, and can be manufactured with simple tools. The coating is field tested; AR coated focal plane elements were deployed in the 2016-2017 austral summer and AR coated reimaging optics were deployed in 2017-2018.