Capacity Building for Thai Astronomy Phase 3: Establishing NARIT Millimetre Laboratory for Developing State-of-the-Art Astronomical Receivers

JCMT is the largest existing single dish millimetre (mm) and sub-millimetre telescope in the world, originally built by UK, and stationed at the Mauna Kea peak of the Haiwai'i island. The telescope is currently owned and operated by the East Asia Observatory (EAO), in which NARIT is a member of the organisation. NARIT is also heavily involved in the EAO up-coming plan to upgrade the various receiver instruments hosted in JCMT, in particular the heterodyne array HARP-B, which is a 16-pixel superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixer receiver. The plan is to replace HARP-B with a cutting-edge compact high sensitivity instrument with even larger pixel count to expand the mapping area and increase the mapping speed by at least an order of magnitude. The new receiver needs to be housed within the existing restricted space in the receiver cabin of JCMT without the need for major re-engineering of the facility, and this could be done by employing the latest heterodyne receiver technologies.

The success of this upgrading programme relies on the combination of various state-of-the-art technologies and support from numerous resources, which inevitably comes with significant human capacity and skills development challenges. Currently, Thailand has few astronomers or engineers who can design, construct and operate the instrument. But the pool of talented candidates whom can be trained and performed the job is large, due to the country's strong educational programme that equips the students with the required fundamental skills to uptake the challenging tasks. On the other hand, the scientific community in UK, particular the group in the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester, have many years of experience in developing technologies in the mm-wave and building instruments for various astronomical applications. Therefore, through this proposal, we aim to address these challenges by tapping into the UK's long heritage and highly developed skills in mm-wave astronomy and instrumentation, to train and prepare the personnel in NARIT with the fundamental skill-sets and technical know-how to contribute to the long-term programme of constructing mm-wave instruments for JCMT, and many other instruments, in the near future.

The two main research topics proposed in this program that would allow us to use these as platform to provide training and knowledge transfers are 1) Constructing a prototype linear 1 x 4 SIS mixer array at 350 GHz that could be further extended and stacked to form a much larger array e.g., an 8 x 8, 64-pixel array, aiming to upgrade the existing HARP-B in JCMT; and 2) Development of Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) above 70 GHz and produce compact and highly integrated packaging scheme for Focal Plane Array (FPA) receivers. These LNAs would have applications on the new Thai National Radio Telescope (125 GHz receiver) and JCMT (200-350 GHz), both of which NARIT have access to. We will use these research targets as the vehicle for technology transfer via bilateral UK-Thailand collaboration. Both projects will also incorporate many key skills of value to a developing knowledge economy such as engineering, electronics, cryogenics and telecommunications technology etc. We will also partner with the Thai astronomical and technical community to further propagate the technical knowledge acquired from astronomy instrumentation to the wider audience, bolstering the Thai general population skill base e.g., via public talks and outreach programme. This programme will not only help to develop the skills that Thailand urgently needs at this stage, but will also have impact on the wider economy through the increased uptake of undergraduates and graduates in Science Technology Engineering and Medicine (STEM) area, and up-skilling of current graduates and postgraduates in various other advanced science and technological fields.

Thailand is a country that aspires in the long term to achieve the status of developed country, which means improving the national income of the individuals and the living standards of the population. At present, Thailand is in the transitional period of transforming its core economic activities from relying mainly on traditional labour-intense to high-tech driven industries where they can create and innovate their own technologies, cultivating Thailand as a central hub of high-tech industries in South East Asia. This in turn creates more economical and social links with the world, in particular with the UK, fostering more trade and technological exchanges, which will eventually benefit all countries involved in the future.

One important method of achieving this is through technological skills and knowledge transfer, and the development of highly skilled graduates and undergraduates in science and technology. By building the foundation and expanding a larger pool of qualified scientists and engineers through higher educational standards and involvement in international research programmes, they will be well equipped with the fundamental skills and knowledge needed to become further engaged in both basic scientific explorations and establishment of new high-tech industries.

The research programme described in this application focuses on developing mm-wave instrumentation for astronomy, and therefore new talents from the pool of local technicians, students, scientists and engineers will be given the opportunity, for the first time, to be trained in these high RF frequency related technologies. These technologies will form the basis of and serve as the beacons to open up new industries in Thailand, such as cryogenic & microwave RF engineering, superconducting thin-film fabrication, state-of-the-art micro-machining industry etc.

A direct consequence of this project is to allow NARIT to extend its technological capabilities and infrastructures to the mm wavelengths. This is important, because it would allow the Thai astronomy community to study the microwave and mm astronomy, which involve studies of cosmic microwave background and the formation of galaxies and stars in the Universe. It will also allow them to become a core member of the EAO that is keen to explore both the astronomy and technology in this area.

The scientific development in this technological area is only a part of a successful story, the other part is to bring these technologies to a wider and further audience group, including all the potential end users in Thailand and nearby regions by organising a workshop on Terahertz Technology and Applications in the later part of the project. Not only the astronomers, graduates and instrumentation developers, but also people from telecommunications, satellite and other related industries will be invited. NARIT has a very good track record of workshops and public engagement. The workshop will be carried out in collaboration the IAU Regional Office and the UNESCO training centre based at NARIT. The workshop will stimulate wider engagement in mm astronomy and instrumentation, promoting the uptake of Thai students into STEM education, and train potential users on applying and innovating on these new cutting-edge technologies. This will result in wider dissemination of the technologies founded astronomy into broader related industries, benefiting both Thailand and the worldwide scientific and technological communities.