TolTEC is a three-band millimeter-wave, imaging polarimeter installed on the 50 m diameter Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) in Mexico. This camera simultaneously images the focal plane at three wavebands centered at 1.1 mm (270 GHz), 1.4 mm (214 GHz), and 2.0 mm (150 GHz). TolTEC combines polarization-sensitive kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) with the LMT to produce high resolution images of the sky in both total intensity and polarization. I present an overview of the TolTEC camera’s optical system and my contributions to the optomechanical design and characterization of the instrument. As part of my work with TolTEC, I designed the mounting structures for the cold optics within the cryostat accounting for thermal contraction to ensure the silicon lenses do not fracture when cooled. I also designed the large warm optics that re-image the light from the telescope, requiring me to perform static and vibration analyses to ensure the mounts correctly supported the mirrors. I discuss the various methods used to align the optics and the cryostat in the telescope. I discuss the Zemax optical model of TolTEC and compare it with measurements of the instrument to help with characterization. Finally, I present the results of stacking galaxies on data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) to measure the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect and estimate the thermal energy in the gas around high red-shift, quiescent galaxies as an example of science that could be done with TolTEC data. Since the camera combines high angular resolution with images at three wavelengths near distinct SZ features, TolTEC will provide precise measurements to learn more about these types of galaxies.

The work covered in this dissertation addresses two areas revolving around superconducting nanowire detector development. The first is regarding array architectureused for a large-scale system. The second involves operating under conditions that allow for a linear response in a superconducting nanowire detector. This dissertation provides the relevant theory, design, and measurements to characterize these detectors. The array architecture studied here utilizes a superconducting nanowire single photon detector embedded in an LC resonant structure, allowing multiple pixels to couple to a single transmission line and identify each one by a tuned characteristic frequency. The pixels in the array are DC-biased, allowing them to respond to absorbed single photons and avoiding any dead time associated with RF biasing. Measured results from a 16-pixel array based on chip components are analyzed. The development here directs this architecture towards integrating a proven 16-pixel design onto a single substrate with the capacity to scale to a higher pixel count and integrate into a broad range of applications. This text outlines the theory behind the proposed linear operation regime and details the considerations needed to achieve a response. The basic principle relies on the time-dependent change in kinetic inductance due to an absorbed photon. Under the conditions discussed in the text, this would allow for fast photon number resolution. However, without reaching those conditions, the detector may still operate under a higher incident photon flux. Two device designs are formulated and simulated, weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each approach. One of the device designs uses an impedance-matching taper to minimize reflections between the nanowire and 50 Ohm amplifier. The other design utilizes N parallel nanowires spanning the length of a gap along a 50 Ohm transmission line path. The tapered device is realized to a proof-of-principle stage and measured under conditions that set a limit on the device’s linear response to optical power. The performance of this detector points to areas of improvement that are addressed or circumvented in the parallel bridge design. Potential for future development is discussed for the frequency multiplexed superconducting nanowire single photon detector array and the linear mode detector.

Millimeter wave technologies have various applications in many science and engineering disciplines, from astronomy and chemistry to medicine and security. The superconducting circuit technology, in particular mm-wave, is one of the most appealing candidates due to their extremely low loss, near quantum-limited noise performance, and scalable fabrication. Two main immediate applications of these devices are in astronomical instrumentation and quantum computing and sensing. The kinetic inductance caused by the inertia of cooper pairs in thin-film superconductors dominates over the geometric inductance of the superconducting circuit. The nonlinear response of the kinetic inductance to an applied field or current provides a Kerr-like medium. This nonlinear platform can be used for mixing processes, parametric gain, and anharmonic resonance. In this thesis, I present the development of an mm-wave superconducting on-chip Fourier transform spectrometer (SOFTS) based on a nonlinear kinetic inductance of superconducting thin films. The circuit elements of the SOFTS device include a quadrature hybrid and current-controllable superconducting transmission lines in an inverted microstrip geometry. Another similar device explored here is a kinetic inductance traveling wave parametric amplifier (KI-TWPA) with wide instantaneous bandwidth, quantum noise limited performance, and high dynamic range as a candidate for the readout of cryogenic detectors and superconducting qubits. I report four-wave mixing gain measurements of ~ 30 dB from 0.2 - 5 GHz in KI-TWPAs made of capacitively shunted microstrip lines. I show that the gain can be tuned over the above-mentioned frequency range by changing the pump tone frequency. I also discuss the measured gain (~ 6 dB) of a prototype mm-wave KI-TWPA in the 75 - 100 GHz frequency range. Finally, I present, for the first time, the concept and simulation of a kinetic inductance qubit I named Kineticon. The qubit exploits the nonlinearity of the kinetic inductance of a very thin nanowire connecting two capacitive pads with a resonant frequency of ~ 96 GHz. the qubit is embedded in an mm-wave aluminum cavity. I show that mm-wave anharmonic microstrip resonators made of NbTiN have quality factors > 60,000. These measurements are promising for implementing high-quality factor resonators and qubits in the mm-wave regime.

Millimeter astronomy unlocks a window to the earliest produced light in the universe, called the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Through analysis of the CMB, overarching features about the universe's evolution and structure can be better understood. Modern millimeter-wave instruments are constantly seeking improvements to sensitivity in the effort to further constrain small CMB anisotropies in both temperature and polarization. As a result, detailed investigations into lesser-known processes of the universe are now becoming possible. Here I present work on the millimeter-wavelength analysis of z ≈ 1 quiescent galaxy samples, whose conspicuous quenching of star formation is likely the result of active galactic nuclei (AGN) accretion onto supermassive black holes. Such AGN feedback would heat up a galaxy's surrounding circumgalactic medium (CGM). Obscured by signal from cold dust, I isolate the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, a CMB temperature anisotropy produced by hot ionized gas, to measure the CGM's average thermal energy and differentiate between AGN accretion models. I find a median thermal energy that best corresponds with moderate to high levels of AGN feedback. In addition, the radial profile of cold dust associated with the galaxy samples appears to be consistent with large-scale clustering of the universe. In the endeavor of increasingly efficient millimeter-wave detectors, I also describe the design process for novel multichroic dual-polarization antennas. Paired with extended hemispherical lenslets, simulations of these superconducting antennas show the potential to match or exceed performance compared to similar designs already in use. A prototype detector array, with dual-bowtie and hybrid trapezoidal antennas coupled to microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) has been made and is under preparation to be tested in the near future. Finally, I also present my contributions to the cryogenic readout design of the Ali CMB Polarization Telescope (AliCPT), a large-scale CMB telescope geared towards searching the Northern Hemisphere sky for a unique `B-mode' polarization expected to be produced by primordial gravitational waves. Cryogenic readout is responsible for successful interfacing between room temperature electronics and sensitive detectors operating on AliCPT's sub-Kelvin temperature focal plane. The development of millimeter-wave instruments and future endeavors show great potential for the overall scientific community.

Studying the interstellar medium (ISM) is the key to answering questions about how material that exists between the stars drives the evolution of galaxies. Current models for the ISM life-cycle exist, but several steps lack observational evidence. Inthis dissertation I present the work I completed in support of up-coming mission to further study the ISM. This work includes ancillary data analysis of the Carina Nebula for the upcoming balloon mission: astrophysics stratospheric telescope for high spectral resolution observations at submillimeter wavelengths (ASTHROS). I present a derived molecular gas map of Carina from Herschel dust continuum emission maps at wavelengths between 70-500 microns. I compare it to the distribution of atomic gas, using HI 21 cm data, and of multiple CO isotopologues for the J = 1 → 0 rotational transition. I use these data sets to separate the CO–dark and CO–bright molecular components to study their relative contribution to the total molecular gas mass budget in Carina. I studied the transition between atomic and molecular gas in this region, by deriving the molecular fraction as a function of position, and comparing it to theoretical models of this transition. I also present the flight hardware design, testing, and space qualification of the intermediate frequency (IF) harness for the galactic/extragalactic ultra long duration balloon spectroscopic terahertz observatory (GUSTO). The harness transmits signal via novel cryogenic flexible stripline based transmission lines operating from 0.3 - 6.0 GHz. I designed three sets of 8-channel ribbons with characteristic insertion loss of 3.07 dB/ft at 5 GHz while the line was at a temperature gradient between 20 K - 300 K. Missions like GUSTO make use of non-linear mixing elements to achieve down-conversion of higher frequencies into IF bands. The mixers have a temperature dependent impedance that is difficult to measure. The last chapters of this work detail my attempt to carry out in-situ vacuum cryogenic calibrations using industry standard commercial off-the-shelf calibration kits and cryogenic RF electro-mechanical latching switches. I present the complex impedance of a non-linear superconducting transmission line as measured with a cryogenic calibration.

Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs) offer highly sensitive solutions for millimeter and submillimeter wave astronomy. KIDs are superconducting detectors capable of measuring photon energy and arrival time. KIDs use the change in surface impedance of the superconductor when an incident photon is absorbed and breaks Cooper pairs in the superconducting material. This occurs when KIDs use a superconducting resonator: when a photon is incident on the inductor, the photon is absorbed and inductance increases and the resonant frequency decreases. The resonator is weakly coupled to a transmission line which naturally allows for multiplexing to allow up to thousands of detectors to be read out on one transmission line. In this thesis a KID is presented to be used at submillimeter wavelengths. I optimized a polarization-sensitive aluminum absorber for future Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) missions. BLAST is designed to investigate polarized interstellar dust and the role of magnetic fields on star formation. As part of the effort to develop aluminum KIDs for BLAST, I investigated the optical coupling method including different feedhorn structures and a hybrid design. I present a suite of simulations calculating the absorption efficiency of the absorber. The optimized KID is a feedhorn/waveguide coupled front-illuminated detector that achieves 70% absorption over the frequency band centered at 250um.

The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is a mathematical operation utilized in various signal processing applications including Astronomy and digital communications (satellite, cellphone, radar, etc.) to separate signals at different frequencies. Performing DFT on a signal by itself suffers from inter-channel leakage. For an ultrasensitive application like radio astronomy, it is important to minimize frequency sidelobes. To achieve this, the Polyphase Filterbank (PFB) technique is used which modifies the bin-response of the DFT to a rectangular function and suppresses out-of-band crosstalk. This helps achieve the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) required for astronomy measurements. In practice, 2N DFT can be efficiently implemented on Digital Signal Processing (DSP) hardware by the popular Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm. Hence, 2N tap-filters are commonly used in the Filterbank stage before the FFT. At present, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) from different vendors (e.g. Xilinx, Altera, Microsemi, etc.) are available which offer high performance. Xilinx Radio-Frequency System-on-Chip (RFSoC) is the latest kind of such a platform offering Radio-frequency (RF) signal capture / generate capability on the same chip. This thesis describes the characterization of the Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) available on the Xilinx ZCU111 RFSoC platform, detailed design steps of a Critically-Sampled PFB, and the testing and debugging of a Weighted OverLap and Add (WOLA) PFB to examine the feasibility of implementation on custom ASICs for future space missions. The design and testing of an analog Printed Circuit Board (PCB) circuit for biasing cryogenic detectors and readout components are also presented here.

This thesis covers the design, development and testing of two high-power radio frequency transmitters that operate in C-band and X-band (System-C/X). The operational bands of System-C/X are 3-6 GHz and 8-11 GHz, respectively. Each system is designed to produce a peak effective isotropic radiated power of at least 50 dBW. The transmitters use parabolic dish antennas with dual-linear polarization feeds that can be steered over a wide range of azimuths and elevations with a precision of a fraction of a degree. System-C/X's transmit waveforms are generated using software-defined radios. The software-defined radio software is lightweight and reconfigurable. New waveforms can be loaded into the system during operation and saved to an onboard database. The waveform agility of the two systems lends them to potential uses in a wide range of broadcasting applications, including radar and communications. The effective isotropic radiated power and beam patterns for System-C/X were measured during two field test events in July 2021 and January 2022. The performance of both systems was found to be within acceptable limits of their design specifications.

As a demonstration study of low-resolution spectrophotometry, the photometric redshift estimation with narrow-band optical photometry of nine galaxy clusters is presented in this thesis. A complete data reduction process of the photometryusing up to 16 10nm wide narrow-band optical filters from 490nm − 660nm are provided. Narrow-band photometry data are combined with broad-band photometry (SDSS/Pan-STARRS) for photometric redshift fitting. With available spectroscopic redshift data from eight of the fields, I evaluated the fitted photometric redshift results and showed that combining broad-band photometric data with narrow-band data result in improvements of factor 2-3, compared to redshift estimations from broad-band photometry alone. With 15 or 16 narrow-band data combined with SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) or Pan-STARRS1 (The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) data, a Normalized Median Absolute Deviation of σNMAD ∼ 0.01−0.016 can be achieved. The multiband images of galaxy cluster ABELL 611 have been used to further study intracluster light around its brightest cluster galaxy (BCG). It can be shown here that fitting of BCG+ICL stellar properties using the averaged 1-dimensional radial profile is possible up to ∼ 100kpc within this cluster. The decreasing in age of the stellar population as a function of radius from the BCG+ICL profile, though not entirely conclusive, demonstrates possible future application of low-resolution spectrophotometry on the ICL studies. Finally, Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission planning study are covered, and a methodology of visualization tool for target availability is described.

The continuous time-tagging of photon arrival times for high count rate sources isnecessary for applications such as optical communications, quantum key encryption, and astronomical measurements. Detection of Hanbury-Brown and Twiss (HBT) single photon correlations from thermal sources, such as stars, requires a combination of high dynamic range, long integration times, and low systematics in the photon detection and time tagging system. The continuous nature of the measurements and the need for highly accurate timing resolution requires a customized time-to-digital converter (TDC). A custom built, two-channel, field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based TDC capable of continuously time tagging single photons with sub clock cycle timing resolution was characterized. Auto-correlation and cross-correlation measurements were used to constrain spurious systematic effects in the pulse count data as a function of system variables. These variables included, but were not limited to, incident photon count rate, incoming signal attenuation, and measurements of fixed signals. Additionally, a generalized likelihood ratio test using maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) was derived as a means to detect and estimate correlated photon signal parameters. The derived GLRT was capable of detecting correlated photon signals in a laboratory setting with a high degree of statistical confidence. A proof is presented in which the MLE for the amplitude of the correlated photon signal is shown to be the minimum variance unbiased estimator (MVUE). The fully characterized TDC was used in preliminary measurements of astronomical sources using ground based telescopes. Finally, preliminary theoretical groundwork is established for the deep space optical communications system of the proposed Breakthrough Starshot project, in which low-mass craft will travel to the Alpha Centauri system to collect scientific data from Proxima B. This theoretical groundwork utilizes recent and upcoming space based optical communication systems as starting points for the Starshot communication system.