Kinetic inductance detector

They were first developed by scientists at the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2003.

They are being developed for high-sensitivity astronomical detection for frequencies ranging from the far-infrared to X-rays.

Photons incident on a strip of superconducting material break Cooper pairs and create excess quasiparticles.

This resonator-based readout is useful for developing large-format detector arrays, as each KID can be addressed by a single microwave tone and many detectors can be measured using a single broadband microwave channel, a technique known as frequency-division multiplexing.

[9] KIDs have also gained popularity as a more compact, lower cost, and less complex alternative to transition edge sensors.