Abstract: The Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) is one of the three science instruments on ESA's far infrared and submillimetre observatory. It employs two Ge:Ga photoconductor arrays (stressed and unstressed) with 16×25 pixels, each, and two filled silicon bolometer arrays with 16×32 and 32×64 pixels, respectively, to perform integral-field spectroscopy and imaging photometry in the 60-210 μm wavelength regime. In photometry mode, it simultaneously images two bands, 60-85 μm or 85-125 μm and 125-210 μm, over a field of view of ~1.75'× 3.5', with close to Nyquist beam sampling in each band. In spectroscopy mode, it images a field of 47” × 47”, resolved into 5×5 pixels, with an instantaneous spectral coverage of ~1500 km s-1 and a spectral resolution of ~175 km s-1. We summarise the design of the instrument, describe observing modes, calibration, and data analysis methods, and present our current assessment of the in-orbit performance of the instrument based on the performance verification tests. PACS is fully operational, and the achieved performance is close to or better than the pre-launch predictions.

Abstract: Materials with a small superconducting energy gap favor a high detection efficiency of low-energy photons in superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. We developed a TaN detector with smaller gap and lower density of states at the Fermi energy than in comparable NbN devices, while other relevant parameters remain essentially unchanged. This results in a reduction of the minimum photon energy required for direct detection to $\approx1/3$ as compared to NbN.

Abstract: Superconducting Single Photon Detectors (SSPD) are now mature enough to provide extremely interesting detector performances in term of sensitivity, speed, and geometry in the visible and near infrared wavelengths. Taking advantage of recent results obtained in the Sinphonia project, the goal of our research is to demonstrate the feasibility of a new family of micro-spectrometers, called SWIFTS (Stationary Wave Integrated Fourier Transform Spectrometer), associated to an array of SSPD, the whole assembly being integrated on a monolithic sapphire substrate coupling the detectors array to a waveguide injecting the light. This unique association will create a major breakthrough in the domain of visible and infrared spectroscopy for all applications where the space and weight of the instrument is limited. SWIFTS is an innovative way to achieve very compact spectro-detectors using nano-detectors coupled to evanescent field of dielectric integrated optics. The system is sensitive to the interferogram inside the dielectric waveguide along the propagation path. Astronomical instruments will be the first application of such SSPD spectrometers. In this paper, we describes in details the fabrication process of our SSPD built at CEA/DRFMC using ultra-thin NbN epitaxial films deposited on different orientations of Sapphire substrates having state of the art superconducting characteristics. Electron beam lithography is routinely used for patterning the devices having line widths below 200 nm and down to 70 nm. An experimental set-up has been built and used to test these SSPD devices and evaluate their photon counting performances. Photon counting performances of our devices have been demonstrated with extremely low dark counts giving excellent signal to noise ratios. The extreme compactness of this concept is interesting for space spectroscopic applications. Some new astronomical applications of such concept are proposed in this paper.