First results of polarimetric all silicon bolometric arrays in the submillimeter domain

We develop polarimetric detector arrays for submillimeter Space astronomy. The technology is based on the all-silicon bolometer scheme established for the Herschel/PACS photometer. Each pixel detects two orthogonal polarization directions with an efficiency greater than 95%. Every other pixel in the array is rotated by 45° to retrieve the linear Stokes parameter of the incident light inside the Airy disc of the telescope optics. We reduced the temperature to 50 mK to improve sensitivity and introduced new readout schemes based on single or double Wheatstone bridge configurations for fully differential DC outputs. The detectors are grown directly on a CMOS circuit wafer to ensure the largest bandwidth with the highest response.