One of the Band 5 receivers for ALMA

This picture shows one of the Band 5 receiver cartridges built for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Extremely weak signals from space are collected by the ALMA antennas and focussed onto the receivers, which transform the faint radiation into an electrical signal. The Band 5 receivers detect electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between about 1.4 and 1.8 millimetres (211 and 163 gigahertz).

The receivers were originally designed, developed, and prototyped by Onsala Space Observatory’s Advanced Receiver Development group, based at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, in collaboration with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, and ESO, under the European Commission (EC) supported Framework Programme FP6 (ALMA Enhancement).

Band 5 of ALMA achieved first fringes in July 2015 and the first science observations were made in late 2016.