Superconducting
Sensors

Fabrication of superconducting sensors has become economical, reliable, and practical.

Large arrays of thousands of these sensors are opening up a new era in astrophysics, THz-imaging, and industrial sensing.

Realizing the benefits requires photon-noise limited readout, and control that scales in capability without scaling in complexity.

The most effective systems are designed for both lab and deployment environments, ensuring that techniques developed during R&D translate efficiently to large-scale operation in the field.

We use digital frequency-domain multiplexing to continuously operate large scale arrays, with high mux-factor and powerful active feedback, supporting:

• Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors

• Microwave Multiplexing

• Transition Edge Sensors

• Graphene Bolometers

We also know that every detector is unique, even if we wish they weren’t: maintaining the flexibility to treat them all differently, with simple bookkeeping, is essential to robust and reliable instruments.

 
 

The Future…

  • with thousands of channels per I/O, wide analog bandwidth, and direct digital RF synthesis.

  • so your design trade-offs
    aren’t dictated by hardware limitations. Multiplexing factor, operating bandwidth, I/O modules per unit, feedback modes and latency — these are your resources to configure in a way that meets the needs of each project, especially as those needs evolve.

  • so a single board can function as a fully standalone unit, and operate over 4,000 sensors. No large up-front infrastructure costs. As your system grows, continue adding boards, or integrate them into a full-mesh backplane.

  • using active feedback with two separate feedback loops that can operated independently, or be coupled. Control detector linearity, tone-track, improve amplifier dynamic range, or implement your own novel techniques.

  • we know that locked black boxes slow everybody down. Our hardware uses an embedded Linux environment that you have the keys to. We provide multi-level API access, from a graphical web-server to Python and even direct firmware bindings. The user-facing software stack is community-driven, deployment-ready, maintained, and open-source.

 

Demonstration hardware is now available

Contact us to learn more