Characterization of Si Membrane TES Bolometer Arrays for the HIRMES Instrument

The high-resolution mid-infrared spectrometer instrument will fly onboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s airborne stratospheric observatory for infrared astronomy in 2019. It will provide astronomers with a unique observing window (25–122 μ m ) for exploring the evolution of protoplanetary disks into young solar systems. There are two focal plane detector arrays for the instrument: a high-resolution ( λ / Δ λ = 100 , 000 ) 8 × 16 detector array, with a target noise-equivalent power, NEP ≤ 3 aW / Hz , and a low-resolution ( λ / Δ λ = 600 –19,000) 16 × 64 detector array with a target NEP ≤ 20 aW / Hz . The detectors for both of these arrays are superconducting Mo/Au bilayer transition-edge sensor bolometers on suspended single-crystal silicon membranes. We present detector characterization results for both arrays, including measurements of thermal conductance in comparison with phonon transport models, and measurements of saturation power and noise.