Development of a Temperature-Variable Cold Blackbody Calibrator for Millimeter and Submillimeter Wave Detectors
Abstract
We report the design, fabrication, and characterization of a cryogenic blackbody calibrator intended for laboratory-based detector characterization, providing multi-temperature calibration of millimeter- and submillimeter-wave detectors over a temperature range of 4 K to ~10 K. The device employs a Stycast/SiC absorber shaped for uniform array illumination and mounted on a phosphor-bronze substrate with optimized thermal links. Measured thermal conductance and heat capacity show the expected temperature dependence, although the conductance was lower than estimated, yielding a thermal time constant of 8.5 s at 10 K versus the 3.7 s design estimate. The response remains practical, demonstrating the calibrator's effectiveness as a stable reference source for precise calibration of detector arrays.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{watanabe2026development,
title = {{Development of a Temperature-Variable Cold Blackbody Calibrator for Millimeter and Submillimeter Wave Detectors}},
author = {Kazuki Watanabe and Taiki Sato and Shuhei Inoue and Shinsuke Uno and Tatsuya Takekoshi and Tai Oshima},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.21473},
eprint = {2609.21473},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21473},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Development of a Temperature-Variable Cold Blackbody Calibrator for Millimeter and Submillimeter Wave Detectors
AU - Kazuki Watanabe
AU - Taiki Sato
AU - Shuhei Inoue
AU - Shinsuke Uno
AU - Tatsuya Takekoshi
AU - Tai Oshima
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.21473
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21473
AB - We report the design, fabrication, and characterization of a cryogenic blackbody calibrator intended for laboratory-based detector characterization, providing multi-temperature calibration of millimeter- and submillimeter-wave detectors over a temperature range of 4 K to ~10 K. The device employs a Stycast/SiC absorber shaped for uniform array illumination and mounted on a phosphor-bronze substrate with optimized thermal links. Measured thermal conductance and heat capacity show the expected temperature dependence, although the conductance was lower than estimated, yielding a thermal time constant of 8.5 s at 10 K versus the 3.7 s design estimate. The response remains practical, demonstrating the calibrator's effectiveness as a stable reference source for precise calibration of detector arrays.
ER -