| SPIDER is a balloon-borne millimeter-wave telescope designed to study the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). S PIDER will map 10% of the full sky with degree-scale beams to search for the distinctive inflationary gravitational wave signal on angular scales between 1° and 10°, thereby probing the energy scale of inflation. In its first flight, SPIDER will field 2,400 antenna-coupled bolometers split between two bands centered at 93 GHz and 148 GHz. Slot antenna arrays, band defining microstrip filters and superconducting bolometers are all fabricated photolithographically on a shared silicon substrate. S PIDER's detectors are split amongst six monochromatic on-axis refractors in a shared helium-cooled cryostat. This thesis reviews the design of S PIDER and its antenna-coupled bolometers, and details the currently achieved performance of SPIDER's receivers. |
