Conceptual Design of the Modular Detector and Readout System for the CMB-S4 survey experiment

TL;DR

This paper details the conceptual design of a modular detector and readout system for CMB-S4, a large-scale experiment aiming to map the cosmic microwave background with unprecedented sensitivity using 500,000 superconducting detectors.

Contribution

It introduces a scalable, modular detector and readout architecture capable of supporting the large detector count required for CMB-S4, integrating advanced superconducting technologies.

Findings

Design achieves high sensitivity across 20-300 GHz bands

Scalable modular architecture supports over 500,000 detectors

Incorporates advanced superconducting circuit fabrication techniques

Abstract

We present the conceptual design of the modular detector and readout system for the Cosmic Microwave Background Stage 4 (CMB-S4) ground-based survey experiment. CMB-S4 will map the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the millimeter-wave sky to unprecedented sensitivity, using 500,000 superconducting detectors observing from Chile and Antarctica to map over 60 percent of the sky. The fundamental building block of the detector and readout system is a detector module package operated at 100 mK, which is connected to a readout and amplification chain that carries signals out to room temperature. It uses arrays of feedhorn-coupled orthomode transducers (OMT) that collect optical power from the sky onto dc-voltage-biased transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers. The resulting current signal in the TESs is then amplified by a two-stage cryogenic Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID) system with a time-division multiplexer to reduce wire count, and matching room-temperature electronics to condition and transmit signals to the data acquisition system. Sensitivity and systematics requirements are being developed for the detector and readout system over a wide range of observing bands (20 to 300 GHz) and optical powers to accomplish CMB-S4's science goals. While the design incorporates the successes of previous generations of CMB instruments, CMB-S4 requires an order of magnitude more detectors than any prior experiment. This requires fabrication of complex superconducting circuits on over 10 square meters of silicon, as well as significant amounts of precision wiring, assembly and cryogenic testing.