Development of an ultra-sensitive 210-micron array of KIDs for far-IR astronomy

The Probe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) is a proposed space observatory which will use arrays of thousands of kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) to perform low- and moderate-resolution spectroscopy throughout the far-infrared. The detectors must have noise equivalent powers (NEPs) at or below 1×10−19 W Hz−1/2 to be subdominant to noise from sky backgrounds and thermal noise from PRIMA’s cryogenically cooled primary mirror. Using a Radio Frequency System on a Chip for multitone readout, we measure the NEPs of detectors on a flight-like array designed to observe at a wavelength of 210 μm. We find that 92% of the KIDs measured have an NEP below 1 × 10−19 W Hz−1/2 at a noise frequency of 10 Hz.