Mr Gethin Robson

Research student

I began my PhD here at Cardiff in October 2020 after completing my integrated Master’s degree at Lancaster University with my fourth year thesis on the realisation of a superconductor-insulator-normal metal junction as a high-speed thermometer.

Now, I work within the Instrumentation group under the supervision of Dr. Simon Doyle and Dr. Peter Barry on the development of superconducting filter-banks and detectors known as kinetic inductance detectors.

I am involved in the the South Pole Telescope - Summertime Line Intensity Mapper (SPT-SLIM) collaboration. This project aims to instal an 18 pixel superconducting filter bank sprectrometer device on to the South Pole telescope in the Austral summer of 2023.

The goal of my research is to demonstrate a large format, highly sensitive detector technology suitable for photometry, polarimetry and spectroscopy in millimetre and sub-millimetre astronomy.

Date
Type

2022

Karkare, K. S. et al. 2022. SPT-SLIM: A Line Intensity Mapping Pathfinder for the South Pole Telescope. Journal of Low Temperature Physics 209, pp. 758-765. (10.1007/s10909-022-02702-2)
Robson, G., Anderson, A. J., Barry, P., Doyle, S. and Karkare, K. S. 2022. The simulation and design of an on-chip superconducting millimetre filter-bank spectrometer. Journal of Low Temperature Physics 209, pp. 493-501. (10.1007/s10909-022-02747-3)

I am interested in the use of superconducting micro-resonators embedded in microwave circuits to create highly sensitive detectors for millimetre and submillimetre signals, these devices are commonly known as kinetic inductance detectors.

Currently, I am working on a project called SPT-SLIM to install a superconducting on-chip millimetre spectrometer on the South Pole Telescope (SPT) as a technology demonstration to pave the way for future large format line intensity mapping experiments. My involvement in this project is the development of the device and detector architecture.

Demonstrator: