Location: Zaal E

Time: 16:00 hrs

The advance of astronomy has always gone hand in hand with the development of new observational tools opening up new windows to the sky.

Modern observational astronomy prospers by detecting within the full electromagnetic spectrum to be able to put constraints to improving models of the universe around us. However, not all radiation is as easily detected as visible light. In the sub-mm and far-infrared part of the spectrum (from a few mm to some tens of

microns) the photon energies are small compared to the band gaps in semiconductors, and the wavelengths are small compared to conventional antenna's.

Hence detectors are based upon band gap engineerd semiconductors, bolometric (heat) detectors or superconductors. None of these detectors allow the construction of large 2D detector arrays like the CCD's used for optical astronomy. The microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector, KID, is a new detector type based upon superconducting microwave resonators. KIDs might very well revolutionize sub-mm and far infrared astronomy, since they allow for very large 2D arrays. SRON has developed KID's in collaboration with TU Delft since 2004. Recently a first light experiment was done suceesfully with an SRON 42 pixel array for 350 GHz radiation at the IRAM 30 m telescope near Granada, Spain.