TK has been developing in collaboration with the Institute of Applied Physics in Bern - for a number of years - the calibration target for EUMETSAT's MetOP-SG MWS radiometer. The ProtoFlight Model - (PFM) - the first one due to fly in space - has been undergoing successful final RF testing in Bern. In the pictures you can see the equipment used to make radiometric S11scattering measurements across the microwave sounder's bands - from 23 to 229 GHz. The target - whose temperature can be determined from embedded Platinum Resistance Thermometers to a few milliKelvin- is the black object to the top right. All S11 measurements are with the very tight -45dB monostatic reflectivity requirement - an...
We are delighted that Callum Barrett, our new apprentice has won the Best Apprenticeship 2019 award given by the Rotary Club at a ceremony at Tanbridge House School. Callum ....second from the left...
With Quasi-Optics from TK and mm-wave sources and detectors from VDI, Petr Neugebauer's multi-frequency High Field ESR spectrometer is undergoing "first-light" (to use an astronomers term) testing. With the dry magnet from Cryogenic Ltd nicely buried in the floor - and elegant mounting structure and covering from colleagues in Brno - the Instrument is looking very impressive: The frequency-independent Quasi-Optical Bridge has an unusual feature of having common path lengths in both the LO chain and source chain to the primary inductive-mode detector and phase reference - to minimisethe effect of source phase noise on the instrument's' sensitivity. ...
Under guidance from Bob Clarke and Andrew Gregory from NPL's Electromagnetic & Electrochemical Technologies Department, we have designed a high Q resonator for materials measurement at mm-wavelengths for Qinetiq plc. Using a precision-turned high conductivity spherical mirror and carefully adjusted coupling holes, the resonator will allow precision measurements of the complex permitivity of low loss materials. Fine adjustment of the flat sample mirror is provided. The two waveguide ports - seen below - are connected to a VNA to display the resonance.
TK is finishing up its work on providing hardware to go on ESA's JUICE mission to the Galilean moons - specifically for the THz radiometer on board. A montage of JUICE's planetary objectives - emphasising the high magnetic field present The SWI instrument (SWI) will look at the temperature structure, composition and dynamics of Jupiter's stratosphere as well as the thin atmospheres and exospheres of three of four of the moons first seen by Galileo in the winter of 1610 using his newly invented telescope: Ganymede, Europa and Callisto - just missing out on Io, the most inner one. The SWI - by looking at emissions from the rotation lines of a range of trace gas...
TK and QMC Instruments has been privileged to supply - over the last decade - many of the receiver components used by the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration to generate the first image at 1.3mm (230 GHz) of the supermassive black hole in Messier 87. (Image from EHT) The Event Horizon Telescope is make up of many mm-wave telescopes and arrays of telecopes to provide the long baseline (the size of the Earth) to give the necessary angularresolution to resolve the area around the Black Hole. (Credit European Southern Observatory for the map) For the Hawaii-based Submillimeter Array (SMA) of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian ...