High-bandwidth frequency domain multiplexed readout of transition-edge sensors for neutrinoless double beta decay searches

Abstract

The next-generation of cryogenic neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments require increasingly fast readout in order to improve background discrimination. These experiments, operated as cryogenic calorimeters at $\sim$10 mK, are usually read out by high-impedance neutron transmutation doped (NTD) thermistors, which provide good energy resolution, but are limited by $\sim$1 ms response times. Superconducting detectors, such as transition-edge sensors (TESs) with a time resolution of $\sim$100 $\mu$s, offer superior timing performance over NTD semiconductor bolometers. To make this technology viable for an application to a thousand or more channels, multiplexed readout is necessary in order to minimize the thermal load and radioactive contamination induced by the readout. Frequency-domain multiplexing readout (fMUX) for TESs, previously developed at Berkeley Lab and McGill University, is currently in use for mm-wave telescopes with detector sampling rates in the order of 100 Hz. We demonstrate a new readout system, based on the McGill/Berkeley digital fMux readout, to satisfy the higher bandwidth and noise requirements of the next generation of TES-instrumented cryogenic calorimeters. Each multiplexing readout module comprises 10 superconducting resonators in the 1--5 MHz range and a DC superconducting quantum interference device (DC-SQUID), interfaced to high-speed field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based electronics for digital signal processing and low-latency SQUID feedback. The new readout samples detectors at 156 kHz, three orders of magnitude faster than its cosmology-oriented predecessor, and demonstrates a stable feedback bandwidth of 3 kHz in a real TES-based system.