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Magnet Photo

Micro-bolometer arrays and the South Pole Telescope

Abstract: Instrumentation for bolometeric precision measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background has achieved the background noise limit. Significant improvements in sensitivity will only be realized with kilo-pixel bolometer arrays. I will discuss the detector development for the South Pole Telescope beginning with the deployment of a 700 element array consisting of Transition Edge Sensor micro-bolometers. This array is currently the most sensitive instrument for surveying galaxy clusters through the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. I will also discuss a second focal plane intended for precision measurements of the CMB polarization.
Speaker: Clarence Chang - University of Chicago
Speaker Bio: Clarence Chang is a research scientist with the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University working on CDMS-II which used Transition Edge Sensors (TES) in a direct-detection search for Dark Matter. He has spent the last four years as a member of the South Pole Telescope (SPT) collaboration. During that time, SPT hast constructed a 10-m telescope at the South Pole with a 700 element TES bolometer array. The missions of SPT include a galaxy cluster survey using the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, studies of dusty galaxies, and measurements of primary and secondary anisotropies of the CMB.
Poster Link: Poster
Presentation: Presentation on 3/18/2009 (PDF)