Seeing with Superconductors

by Matt Dobbs

Tuesday 13 May 2025, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Rome

250 (INFN - Pisa)

Abstract: 

Superconducting detectors have revolutionized the way we measure the sky at millimetre wavelengths. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background with modern telescopes use many thousands of detectors and have mapped most features from the early universe to fundamental limits set by cosmic variance. Novel on-chip spectrometers have been deployed for the first time and the technologies that were matured for cosmology are now being used for precision dark matter, axion, and neutrinoless double-beta decay searches.

I will present the state of the art for Transition Edge Sensors and Kinetic Inductance detectors and trace the technological advances that transformed their use and will define their footprints for other applications. The material will be presented at a level that is accessible with no prior knowledge of these detectors.