The NIKA2 commissioning campaign: performance and first results

Understand

The New IRAM KID Array 2 (NIKA 2) is a dual-band camera operating with three frequency-multiplexed kilopixels arrays of Lumped Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors (LEKID) cooled at 150 mK.

• NIKA 2 is designed to observe the intensity and polarisation of the sky at 1.15 and 2.0 mm wavelength from the IRAM 30 m telescope.
• The NIKA 2 instrument represents a huge step in performance as compared to the NIKA pathfinder instrument, which has already shown state-of-the-art detector and photometric performance.
• After the commissioning planned to be accomplished at the end of 2016, NIKA 2 will be an IRAM resident instrument for the next ten years or more.