Performances of Herschel/PACS Bolometer Arrays and future developments at CEA

¹ NASA Herschel Science Center/Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, MC 100-22, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
² CEA-Saclay, IRFU, Service d'Astrophysique, L'Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
³ CEA-Grenoble, LETI, Laboratoire Infrarouge, 38054 Grenoble, France

Corresponding author: nbillot@ipac.caltech.edu

Abstract

The European Space Agency is building a space telescope to observe the Universe in the Far-IR and sub-millimeter regime of the electromagnetic spectrum. The scientific payload is composed of three instruments. One of them, PACS, is equipped with a novel type of bolometer arrays developed by CEA in the late 90's. We briefly present the PACS Photometer and the architecture of CEA filled bolometer arrays. We accessed the physics of the detectors and thoroughly measured their performances by developing a pragmatic calibration procedure. The Photometer is now calibrated and integrated on the focal plane of the observatory. The launch is scheduled for April 2009. Meanwhile, CEA is working on adapting PACS bolometers to longer wavelength for wide-field ground-based telescopes, and for the future cold-telescope space mission SPICA.