Superconducting filterbanks for atmospheric sounding

Superconducting filterbank spectrometers have the potential to improve dramatically the retrieval of atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, enabling significant improvements in the accuracy of weather forecasting.

Filterbank chips based on Transition-Edge Sensor (TES) detectors have been developed and demonstrated in collaboration with Cambridge University for weather applications. Filterbanks based on Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs) operating at higher frequencies are being developed in Cardiff for applications in both climatology and planetary science.