Characterization of the RF Board for microwave SQUID multiplexing readout electronics

Abstract

Microwave SQUID multiplexing ($μ$MUX) is a widely used readout technique for large-scale transition-edge sensor (TES) arrays. It uses radio-frequency (RF) probe tones to interrogate cryogenic resonators, requiring frequency conversion between the baseband electronics and the cryogenic RF signal chain. This work describes the RF Board, a room-temperature frequency-conversion board deployed in the AliCPT $μ$MUX readout system. The board up-converts 0-4 GHz baseband I/Q signals to the 4-8 GHz RF band for injection into the cryogenic chain and down-converts returned RF signals to baseband I/Q for ADC digitization. For the current 1000-tone operation, with a DAC output tone power of -30 dBm/tone, the required power windows are -35 to -25 dBm/tone for the RF tones transmitted to the cryostat and -45 to -35 dBm/tone at the ADC input for the returned tones. The RF Board is characterized using swept single-tone measurements covering up-conversion, down-conversion, and RF loopback. Based on these measurements, the RF output power is calculated to be -31.06 to -25.53 dBm, satisfying the RF output window. Assuming a representative cryogenic-chain transmission of -40 dB, the loopback result gives an estimated returned power of -45 to -35 dBm, within the target range. These results show that the RF Board meets the wideband frequency-conversion and tone-power requirements for the $μ$MUX readout system.