Radiation Tolerance of Aluminum Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector.

Microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) is one of the candidates of focal plane detector for future satellite missions such as LiteBIRD. For the space use of MKIDs, the radiation tolerance is one of the challenges to be characterized prior to the launch. Aluminum (Al) MKIDs with 50 nm thickness on silicon substrate and on sapphire substrate were irradiated with a proton beam of 160 MeV at the heavy ion medical accelerator in Chiba. The total water-equivalent absorbed dose was $$\sim $$ 10 krad which should simulate the worst radiation absorption of 5 years observation at the Lagrange point L2. We measured characteristics of these MKIDs before and after the irradiation. We found no significant changes on resonator quality factor, responsivity, and recombination time of quasi-particles. The change on electrical noise equivalent power was also evaluated, and no significant increase was found at the noise level of $$O(10^{-18})$$ W/ $$\sqrt{ \mathrm{Hz} }$$ . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]