The FAST multi-beam receiver design with RF over fiber link

The Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) has ambitious goals including deep neutral hydrogen surveys and searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence. The aperture of the main reflector is 500 m in diameter. The illuminated section of this reflector, which is 300 m in diameter, is deformed into a parabola. CSIRO has designed a multi-beam, dual polarized, cryostat-cooled receiver system which will be the largest receiver system in the telescope. The system contains 38 independent receiver chains that are optimized to operate in L-band with superior performance. This paper discusses the design challenges, build and the performance of the receiver system, particularly from Low Noise amplifier (LNA) to Digitizer.