Heterodyne Receivers
N3AR - New 3mm APEX Receiver
N3AR is a single-pixel, dual polarization, sideband separating heterodyne receiver operating in the extended W-band frequency range (67 – 116 GHz; i.e. wavelength range around 3 mm). Since October 2024, N3AR is installed in the Cassegrain cabin of the APEX telescope.
LASMA - Large APEX Sub-Millimeter Array
LASMA is a 7-pixel sideband-separating heterodyne array receiver operating between 273 and 374 GHz at the APEX telescope.
NFLASH
The NFLASH receiver system is a state-of-the-art single-pixel heterodyne spectrometer installed in January 2020 at the APEX telescope in Chile. It has the capability to perform simultaneous dual polarization observations in three important frequency bands: 200-270 GHz, 385-510 GHz and 780-950 GHz.
Finished Projects and Developments
GREAT - German REceiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies
GREAT was a highly modular instrument platform for heterodyne receivers for high-resolution spectroscopy on board of SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. SOFIA (a joint project of NASA and DLR) was an air-borne observatory on board a modified Boeing 747-SP.
upGREAT - GREAT’s small camera systems
The upGREAT channels were second generation receivers for the GREAT platform. The two instruments were medium-sized arrays (14 and 7 pixels).
4GREAT - GREAT’s extension to frequencies below 1 THz
4GREAT provided four single-pixel receivers in a common cryostat, offering simultaneous observations of an astronomical source in four different frequency bands.
CHAMP+
CHAMP+ was a dual-color heterodyne array for spectroscopy in the 450 and 350 μm atmospheric windows which has been built in collaboration with SRON-G (providing the SIS-mixers) and JPL.
FLASH+
FLASH/FLASH+ was a dual-frequency MPIfR principal investigator (PI) receiver, operating simultaneously - on orthogonal polarizations - in two different atmospheric windows: from 2005 to 2009 in the 460 and 810 GHz range, then from 2009 around 345 and 460 GHz.
HIFI - local oscillator development
In Summer 1999 the division took responsibility (as subsystem manager) for the local oscillator development for HIFI (Heterodyne Instrument for Herschel – formerly FIRST). Herschel was ESA’s 4th cornerstone in the Horizon 2000 science program, and observed from 2009 to 2013 from the Lagrange point L2.