Applying Energy Absorption Interferometry to THz direct detectors using photomixers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method using Energy Absorption Interferometry with photomixers to measure the modal response of THz detectors, verified experimentally with MKID pixels, enhancing understanding of detector sensitivity in far infrared astronomy.

Contribution

It presents a novel interferometric technique to characterize the complex response functions of THz detectors using photomixers, enabling detailed modal analysis.

Findings

Successful experimental verification with monochromatic THz beams

Effective characterization of MKID pixel response

Demonstration of complex spectral density measurement

Abstract

Detector requirements for far infrared astronomy generally result in devices which exhibit a few-moded response to incident radiation. The sensitivity and spatial form of the individual modes to which such a detector is sensitive can be determined with knowledge of the complex valued cross-spectral density of the system, which we label the detector response function (DRF). A matrix representing the discretized cross-spectral density can be measured from the complex amplitudes of interference fringes generated by two identical sources as they are independently scanned through the field of view. We provide experimental verification of this technique using monochromatic THz beams generated by photomixers in which the relative phase is varied with fiber stretchers. We use this system to characterize the modal response of a single pixel from an array of microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs).