Simons Observatory: on-sky performance of radio-transparent multi-layer insulation using Styroace-II styrofoam

Applied Optics 2026 Open access

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Authors: Samuel Day-Weiss, Nicholas B. Galitzki, Atsuto Takeuchi, Kam Arnold, Kathleen Harrington, M. Hasegawa, Bradley R. Johnson, A. Kusaka, Aashrita Mangu, Jack Orlowski-Scherer, Lyman A. Page, Yoshinori Sueno
+5 more O. Tajima, Alex Thomas, Yuhan Wang, Edward J. Wollack, Kyohei Yamada
DOI: 10.1364/ao.585070
Cited by: 0

Abstract

We present the on-sky performance of a radio-transparent multi-layer insulation filter (RT-MLI) that uses Styroace-II styrofoam to reject ambient thermal radiation from entering a 0.42 m diameter aperture to a sub-100 mK bolometric detector array cooled by a dilution refrigerator. We find that greater than 90% of the expected incident infra-red (IR) radiation is rejected, resulting in

Fields of Study & Subjects

Superconducting and THz Device Technology Spacecraft and Cryogenic Technologies Astronomy and Astrophysical Research

Publication details

Journal / source
Applied Optics
Volume
65
Issue
5
Pages
1614–1614
Publication date
20 January 2026
Language
EN