Severo Ochoa Programme

Technology

Technology

The IAC has the most advanced infrastructure, worldwide connectivity and technology equipment available for its technical support activities and for its own astrophysics projects and those of other external organizations.

For the proper implementation of the Severo Ochoa Program, the IAC has involved its Technology Division which includes laboratories for optics, electronic design, software, astronomical image and sensors, mechanical assembly and commissioning, dimensional metrology, among others, as well as key workshops for assembly, integration and verification of large instruments, technical delineation, instrumental maintenance, mechanics and electronics.

The IAC develops much of the technology for its astronomical research activities in-house. As a result the IAC has become highly proficient in some of the most important areas of knowledge and technology for scientific instrument development. These technical capabilities are made available to outside organisations as part of the IAC's commitment to other technological and industrial sectors.

The Technology Division is working on up to thirty instrument design and development projects for earth telescopes and space satellites at any one time. Their final construction and scientific exploitation will be essential to accomplish long-term objectives of the Severo Ochoa Program. Some of these new technological projects with IAC involvement are cofunded by the Severo Ochoa Program, after a internal evaluation process based on the leverage effect of the financial support to consolidate IAC's leadership and to accomplish design and construction phases.

Within the framework of the IAC's Severo Ochoa Programme 2020-2023, it was decided to provide 20% of the funds to contribute to the implementation of technological projects that can be executed before the end of 2023 and have the potential to generate relevant technological and scientific impact on one or more of the centre's strategic lines. 

To this end, an internal call for proposals was launched, to which 23 proposals were submitted. The Severo Ochoa Coordination Committee selected nine of them for funding:  

NR. PROJECT IP
1 ADFEMOS - FRIDA-EMIR and OSIRIS Detectors Upgrade Enrique Joven Álvarez
2 Center for Advanced Optical Systems (CSOA) José A. López Aguerri
3 IAC participation in the development of the HARMONI instrument 2021-2023 Begoña García Lorenzo
4 Development of acquisition systems based on FPGAs. Applications to QUIJOTE MFI2, TMS, and MKIDs. Participation study in the Litebird (QUIJOTE-FPGA) José A. Rubiño Martín
5 Pioneering the tunable broad band search for axion dark matter above 25 μeV (DALI(PoP)) Javier de Miguel
6 FRIDA on the home stretch: software and pipeline completeness Almudena Prieto Escudero
7 First science with adaptive optics at GTC with GRANCAIN, the provisional IR camera for the GTCAO system. Víctor Sánchez Béjar
8 Mini-ELF Nicolas Lodieu
9 Optical communications in space. Classical and quantum Luis F. Rodríguez Ramos
Astrophysical Instrumentation at the IAC