Image of the CMB obtained with the WMAP satellite using sensitive cm/mm wave detectors. The intensity variations seen are of order one part in a hundred thousand of the absolute intensity of the CMB, which is a 2.7 K blackbody.
As we look very far with astronomical telescopes we also look back in time. Light from the earliest objects we see are usually brightest at millimeter wavelengths (loosely defined as the range from 0.1 to 10 mm). One example of such a source is the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the earliest of all light sources, made up of light left over from the big bang. Dusty "starburst" galaxies, very young versions today's massive galaxies, are another interesting source of mm-wave light. We can learn a great deal about the universe by studying these objects. But we need very sensitive detectors to view distant sources at mm wavelengths.
I work on developing ideas for mm-wave detectors, testing and understanding them, and gathering and analyzing astronomical data from such detectors once they are eventually installed on a suitable telescope. A telescope dish, in this case, is analogous to the lens of a digital camera while the detectors I work on are similar in principle to the individual CCDs (charge coupled devices) in it. But unlike CCDs, the preferred detectors for mm-wave astronomy are heat sensors - or bolometers - whose temperature changes by a tiny amount due to the incidence of mm-wave light. These detectors must be cooled below 1 Kelvin to obtain the desired sensitivity levels. Therefore, my laboratory research is a mixture of low-temperature physics, mm-wave optics, and "cold" electronics usually involving superconductivity. I also work on analyzing and interpreting data from bolometer-based instruments I have helped develop in the past. At present, my data analysis addresses questions about early dusty galaxies forming new stars at an enormous rate (starbursts), which are central to our undestanding of structure-formation and star-formation history.
