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arXiv · 2301.06893

Repurposing ROACH-1 boards for prototyping of readout systems for optical-NIR MKIDs

Oisín Creaner·Colm Bracken·Jack Piercy·Gerhard Ulbricht·Eoin Baldwin·Mario De Lucia·Tom Ray
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Abstract

Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are cryogenic photon detectors and are attractive because they permit simultaneous time, energy and spatial resolution of faint astronomical sources. We present a cost-effective alternative to dedicated (e.g. analogue) electronics for prototyping readout of single-pixel Optical/NIR MKIDs by repurposing existing and well-known ROACH-1 boards. We also present a pipeline that modernises previously-developed software and data frameworks to allow for extensiblity to new applications and portability to new hardware (e.g. Xilinx ZCU111 or 2x2 RFSoC boards).

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Oisín Creaner, Colm Bracken, Jack Piercy, Gerhard Ulbricht, Eoin Baldwin, Mario De Lucia, Tom Ray. 2023-01-17. Repurposing ROACH-1 boards for prototyping of readout systems for optical-NIR MKIDs. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2626985

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