Capacity Building for Thai Astronomy Phase 3: Establishing NARIT Millimetre Laboratory for Developing State-of-the-Art Astronomical Receivers

JCMT是世界上现存最大的单碟毫米和亚毫米望远镜，最初由英国建造，位于夏威夷岛的莫纳克亚峰。该望远镜目前由东亚天文台（EAO）拥有和运营，NARIT是该组织的成员。NARIT还积极参与EAO即将实施的计划，以升级JCMT中的各种接收器仪器，特别是外差阵列HARP-B，这是一种16像素的超导体-绝缘体-超导体（SIS）混合接收器。该计划是用具有更大像素数的尖端紧凑型高灵敏度仪器取代HARP-B，以扩大标测区域并将标测速度提高至少一个数量级。新的接收器须安置在联合指挥管理中心接收器舱内现有的有限空间内，而无须对设施进行重大的重新设计，而这可借采用最新的外差接收器技术来完成。这项升级计划的成功有赖各种最先进的技术和众多资源的支持，这不可避免地带来了重大的人力和技能发展挑战。目前，泰国很少有天文学家或工程师能够设计、建造和操作该仪器。但是，由于该国强大的教育计划，使学生具备承担具有挑战性的任务所需的基本技能，因此可以接受培训和执行工作的人才库很大。另一方面，英国的科学界，特别是牛津大学和曼彻斯特大学的研究小组，在开发毫米波技术和建造各种天文应用仪器方面拥有多年经验。因此，通过这项提案，我们的目标是通过利用英国在毫米波天文学和仪器方面的悠久传统和高度发达的技能来应对这些挑战，为NARIT的人员提供基本技能和技术知识，为JCMT建造毫米波仪器和许多其他仪器的长期计划做出贡献，在这个项目中提出的两个主要研究课题，将允许我们使用这些作为平台来提供培训和知识转移：1）构建350 GHz的原型线性1 x 4 SIS混频器阵列，其可以进一步扩展和堆叠以形成更大的阵列，例如，一个8 x 8，64像素阵列，旨在升级JCMT中现有的HARP-B; 2）开发70 GHz以上的低噪声放大器（LNA），并为焦平面阵列（FPA）接收器提供紧凑和高度集成的封装方案。这些低噪声放大器将应用于新的泰国国家射电望远镜（125千兆赫接收器）和联合射电望远镜（200-350千兆赫），这两种望远镜都是泰国国家研究和信息技术研究所可以使用的。我们将利用这些研究目标作为通过英泰双边合作进行技术转让的工具。这两个项目还将纳入许多对发展中的知识经济有价值的关键技能，如工程，电子，低温和电信技术等。我们还将与泰国天文和技术界合作，进一步向更广泛的受众传播从天文仪器中获得的技术知识，加强泰国普通民众的技能基础，例如，通过公开讲座和外展计划。该计划不仅有助于发展泰国现阶段迫切需要的技能，而且还将通过增加科学技术工程和医学（STEM）领域的本科生和毕业生的吸收，以及提高现有毕业生和研究生在各种其他先进科学和技术领域的技能，对更广泛的经济产生影响。

JCMT is the largest existing single dish millimetre (mm) and sub-millimetre telescope in the world, originally built by UK, and stationed at the Mauna Kea peak of the Haiwai'i island. The telescope is currently owned and operated by the East Asia Observatory (EAO), in which NARIT is a member of the organisation. NARIT is also heavily involved in the EAO up-coming plan to upgrade the various receiver instruments hosted in JCMT, in particular the heterodyne array HARP-B, which is a 16-pixel superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer receiver. The plan is to replace HARP-B with a cutting-edge compact high sensitivity instrument with even larger pixel count to expand the mapping area and increase the mapping speed by at least an order of magnitude. The new receiver needs to be housed within the existing restricted space in the receiver cabin of JCMT without the need for major re-engineering of the facility, and this could be done by employing the latest heterodyne receiver technologies.The success of this upgrading programme relies on the combination of various state-of-the-art technologies and support from numerous resources, which inevitably comes with significant human capacity and skills development challenges. Currently, Thailand has few astronomers or engineers who can design, construct and operate the instrument. But the pool of talented candidates whom can be trained and performed the job is large, due to the country's strong educational programme that equips the students with the required fundamental skills to uptake the challenging tasks. On the other hand, the scientific community in UK, particular the group in the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester, have many years of experience in developing technologies in the mm-wave and building instruments for various astronomical applications. Therefore, through this proposal, we aim to address these challenges by tapping into the UK's long heritage and highly developed skills in mm-wave astronomy and instrumentation, to train and prepare the personnel in NARIT with the fundamental skill-sets and technical know-how to contribute to the long-term programme of constructing mm-wave instruments for JCMT, and many other instruments, in the near future.The two main research topics proposed in this program that would allow us to use these as platform to provide training and knowledge transfers are 1) Constructing a prototype linear 1 x 4 SIS mixer array at 350 GHz that could be further extended and stacked to form a much larger array e.g., an 8 x 8, 64-pixel array, aiming to upgrade the existing HARP-B in JCMT; and 2) Development of Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) above 70 GHz and produce compact and highly integrated packaging scheme for Focal Plane Array (FPA) receivers. These LNAs would have applications on the new Thai National Radio Telescope (125 GHz receiver) and JCMT (200-350 GHz), both of which NARIT have access to. We will use these research targets as the vehicle for technology transfer via bilateral UK-Thailand collaboration. Both projects will also incorporate many key skills of value to a developing knowledge economy such as engineering, electronics, cryogenics and telecommunications technology etc. We will also partner with the Thai astronomical and technical community to further propagate the technical knowledge acquired from astronomy instrumentation to the wider audience, bolstering the Thai general population skill base e.g., via public talks and outreach programme. This programme will not only help to develop the skills that Thailand urgently needs at this stage, but will also have impact on the wider economy through the increased uptake of undergraduates and graduates in Science Technology Engineering and Medicine (STEM) area, and up-skilling of current graduates and postgraduates in various other advanced science and technological fields.