CCAT: Mod-Cam Readout Overview and Flexible Stripline Performance

Abstract

The CCAT Observatory's primary science instrument, Prime-Cam, is nearing readiness for deployment to the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. When fully deployed, Prime-Cam will field approximately 100,000 kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs) across seven instrument modules making both broadband and polarimetric measurements. Meanwhile, in-lab characterization of the first CCAT instrument module, a 280 GHz broadband camera fielding over 10,000 KIDs, is currently underway in the testbed instrument Mod-Cam. Both Mod-Cam and Prime-Cam will employ 46 cm long low-thermal-conductivity flexible circuits ("stripline") between 4 K and 300 K to connect large-format arrays of multiplexed KIDs in each instrument module to readout electronics. The 280 GHz camera currently installed in Mod-Cam uses six of these striplines to read out its over 10,000 detectors. We have examined the thermal and electrical performance of the stripline installed in Mod-Cam. We begin by characterizing the OFHC copper in the stripline traces, allowing for the estimation of thermal loading through these flexible circuits in their configurations in both Mod-Cam and Prime-Cam. We then directly measure the thermal conductivity of the stripline, finding it is best described by $kA = 22\pm6~T^{0.84\pm0.09}~\mathrm{\mu~W~m~K^{-1}}$ for temperature ranges of 6 K < T < 20 K and $kA~=~0.6\pm0.3~T^{-0.4\pm0.1}~\mathrm{mW~m~K^{-1}}$ for ranges from 20 K < T < 80 K. Following our thermal characterizations, we report on the transmission and crosstalk properties of the Mod-Cam readout chain, isolating elevated crosstalk to SMP-SMA transition printed circuit boards (PCBs) that interface with the stripline. This finding validates the stripline circuit as a viable high-density cabling option for large-format array readout.