Akira Endo

Welcome to my personal website! I am an experimental astronomer at the THz Sensing Group of Delft University of Technology. I develop new types of astronomical instruments, which enable us to observe galaxies in the early universe in new ways. I take superconducting electronics and nanotechnology as my main toolbox, because I believe that there are many unexplored properties of superconductors that can be used for detecting light, in various ways and with very high sensitivity.

I currently lead an ERC Consolidator project TIFUUN (THz Integral Field Units with Universal Nanotechnology). This project aims at developing an imaging spectrometer system with multiple Integral Field Units (IFUs), which have up to about 100 spectral pixels (spaxels). Each IFU will be tailored to a specific astronomical science goal. We are now commissioning the pathfinder instrument DESHIMA with a single on-chip spectrometer pixel on the ASTE 10-m telescope in Atacama Desert of Chile (4860 m altitude).

Are you a student?
In the TIFUUN and DESHIMA projects many students are involved, ranging from PhD and MSc students, to even BSc students in their first years. I have supervised students from electrical engineering, applied physics, and astronomy (from Leiden). If you are interested, please contact me by email.

I work together with my local colleagues at the Experimental Astronomy Group, Terahertz Sensing Group, Department of Microelectronics, and Kavli Institute of Nanoscience of TU Delft, as well as collaborators at national and foreign institutes such as SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Leiden Observatory, Institute Néel, University of Tokyo, Nagoya University, Kitami Institute of Technology, and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

Contact

Dr. Akira Endo – Associate Professor
E-mail: a.endo@tudelft.nl
THz Sensing Group
Department of Microelectronics
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Delft University of Technology
Visiting address: Room HB.18.270, Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands
Postal address: Postbox 5031, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
Office phone: +31 15 27 88183