Recent breakthroughs in superconducting camera technology have led to the development of a 400,000 pixel camera capable of detecting faint astronomical signals. This camera, which operates with minimal noise, could revolutionize the search for Earth-like planets and enhance deep space communication through its application in NASA’s DSOC project. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
The 400,000 pixel superconducting camera based on superconducting-nanowire single photon detectors. Credit: Adam McCaughan/NIST But while superconducting detectors hold great promise for astronomical applications, their usage in that field has been stymied by small camera sizes that permit relatively few pixels. Because these detectors are so sensitive, it is difficult to pack a lot of them into a small area without them interfering with each other.
Once the team implemented this readout architecture, they found it immediately became straightforward to construct superconducting cameras with extremely large numbers of pixels. As described by technical lead Dr. Bakhrom Oripov, “The big advance here is that the detectors are truly independent, so if you want a camera with more pixels, you just add more detectors to the chip.
SNSPD cameras can also be used on Earth to detect optical communication signals from missions in deep space. In fact, NASA is currently demonstrating this capability via the, which is the first demonstration of free-space optical communication from interplanetary space. DSOC is sending data from a spacecraft calledon October 13 and is on its way to the Psyche asteroid—to an SNSPD-based ground terminal at Palomar Observatory.
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