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A THz detector with both high sensitivity and fast time response has been required for industrial applications such as nondestructive testing (NDT), security, and spectroscopy. Through a collaboration with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), we have recently developed a THz-sensitive point detector and imager based on metasurface and photomultiplier tube (PMT) and image intensifier (I.I.) technologies, respectively. A fast time response is one of the unique characteristics of these devices: the PMT-based point detector provides a nanosecond response time while the I.I.based imager is capable of frame rates up to 1000 fps. These devices have a double split-ring resonator (DSRR) at the photocathode for THz-electron conversion (metasurface). In this paper, we discuss the two devices and report on the development and results for increasing their sensitivity for ultrafast, broadband THz pulses by sharpening the field-enhancing antenna tips. This leads to a smaller tip diameter, which increases the electric field confinement and thus intensity at the tip, making the field emission more likely to occur at lower field strengths as a result. Both devices thus offer a sensitive and simple method to detect THz frequencies easily, with the I.I. offering a handheld, 9V battery-powered device.

A multimode horn differs from a single mode horn in that it has a larger sized waveguide feeding it. Multimode horns can therefore be utilized as high efficiency feeds for bolometric detectors, providing increased throughput and sensitivity over single mode feeds, while also ensuring good control of the beam pattern characteristics. Although a cavity mounted bolometer can be modelled as a perfect black body radiator (using reciprocity in order to calculate beam patterns), nevertheless, this is an approximation. In this paper we present how this approach can be improved to actually include the cavity coupled bolometer, now modelled as a thin absorbing film. Generally, this is a big challenge for finite element software, in that the structures are typically electrically large. However, the radiation pattern of multimode horns can be more efficiently simulated using mode matching, typically with smooth-walled waveguide modes as the basis and computing an overall scattering matrix for the horn-waveguide-cavity system. Another issue on the optical efficiency of the detectors is the presence of any free space gaps, through which power can escape. This is best dealt with treating the system as an absorber. Appropriate reflection and transmission matrices can be determined for the cavity using the natural eigenfields of the bolometer cavity system. We discuss how the approach can be applied to proposed terahertz systems, and also present results on how the approach was applied to improve beam pattern predictions on the sky for the multi-mode HFI 857GHz channel on Planck.

The Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) is one of three instruments to be launched aboard the Herschel Space Observatory (HSO) in 2009. HIFI will provide unprecedented spectral sensitivity and resolution between 490-1250 GHz and 1410-1910 GHz. In this paper, we report on the analysis of electrical standing waves that are present between the hot electron bolometer (HEB) heterodyne mixing element and the first low noise amplifier in the HIFI instrument. We show that the standing wave shape is not a standard sinusoid and difficult to remove from the resulting spectrum using standard fitting methods. We present a method to remove the standing waves based on data taken during the HIFI instrument level test, and anticipate the use of a similar calibration procedure in actual flight. Using the standing wave profile we obtain direct evidence of the complex IF output impedance of the HEB mixer.

Remnant radiation from the early universe, known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), has been redshifted and cooled, and today has a blackbody spectrum peaking at millimetre wavelengths. The QUBIC (Q&U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology) instrument is designed to map the very faint polaristion structure in the CMB. QUBIC is based on the novel concept of bolometric interferometry in conjunction with synthetic imaging. It will have a large array of input feedhorns, which creates a large number of interferometric baselines. The beam from each feedhorn is passed through an optical combiner, with an off-axis compensated Gregorian design, to allow the generation of the synthetic image. The optical-combiner will operate in two frequency bands (150 and 220 GHz with 25% and 18.2 % bandwidth respectively) while cryogenically cooled TES bolometers provide the sensitivity required at the image plane. The QUBIC Technical Demonstrator (TD), a proof of technology instrument that contains 64 input feed-horns, is currently being built and will be installed in the Alto Chorrillos region of Argentina. The plan is then for the full QUBIC instrument (400 feed-horns) to be deployed in Argentina and obtain cosmologically significant results. In this paper we will examine the output of the manufactered feed-horns in comparison to the nominal design. We will show the results of optical modelling that has been performed in anticipation of alignment and calibration of the TD in Paris, in particular testing the validity of real laboratory environments. We show the output of large calibrator sources (50 ° full width haf max Gaussian beams) and the importance of accurate mirror definitions when modelling large beams. Finally we describe the tolerance on errors of the position and orientation of mirrors in the optical combiner.

MODAL is an optical design and analysis package targeting the millimetre and sub-millimetre region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is being developed at NUI Maynooth with the aim of integrating advanced modelling techniques and access to High Performance Computing into a user-friendly and yet very powerful tool for an (quasi-)optical designer. MODAL has been recently extended to allow integrated simulation of custom corrugated horns and dielectric lenses. This made it possible to model an existing instrument (QUaD), with the goal of optimising its performance. Here we present new results from analysis of the predicted performance of the QUaD telescope, with particular emphasis on polarisation information. They were obtained by using MODAL to model the whole telescope, with the distortion of the primary accounted for, for a range of component tilts and separations.