UCSB Astrophysics
Portrait of Ben Mazin

§ 01People · Faculty

Ben Mazin

Professor

Ben Mazin builds superconducting detectors and the instruments that use them. His lab develops Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) for the near-IR, optical, ultraviolet and X-ray. MKIDs record the energy and arrival time of each photon with no read noise or dark current, and thousands of pixels share one microwave readout line.

The lab has built a series of MKID cameras. ARCONS, at Palomar and Lick, was the first optical and ultraviolet MKID instrument. It was followed by DARKNESS at Palomar, MEC behind SCExAO at Subaru, and XKID behind MagAO-X at Magellan. The current focus is direct imaging of exoplanets, where photon timing helps separate planets from speckles of starlight. MEC helped discover companions to HIP 109427 and HIP 5319.

He received his PhD from Caltech in 2004, worked at JPL, and joined UCSB in 2008. In 2010 he received a PECASE.

§ 02Fig. 1

Where in the universe

Range 4 ly to 6.3 kly

Ben Mazin, row of Fig. 1. The bar spans the light travel distances of the objects studied, 4 ly to 6.3 kly, on a logarithmic axis from the Solar System to the cosmic microwave background. Its color is the research theme. Dotted lines mark landmarks. Fig. 1 with every faculty member

§ 03Publications

Recent papers

The newest papers with Ben Mazin as an author, from NASA ADS. Group members are in gold.

  1. 01Sep 2026arXiv
    Selective state space model for photon energy estimation in microwave kinetic inductance detectorsB. A. MazinExoplanets
    arXiv:2609.30382
  2. 02Aug 2026SPIE
    Design and simulation of a photonic lantern-inspired astrophotonic chip for spectral sensingA. Patel, K. A. Bundy, A. Sengupta, M. C. DeMartino, A. Gagnebin, E. Por, M. Mohammad, M. Arena et al. (13 authors); UCSB: B. MazinExoplanets
    arXiv:2608.08312
  3. 03Aug 2026SPIE
    The design and integration of the optical system for MOMOS: multi-object MKID optical spectrometerR. A. López, C. S. Kim, J. I. Bailey, B. A. MazinExoplanets
    DOI
  4. 04Jan 2026JATIS
    Toward a near-ultraviolet coronagraph instrument for the Habitable Worlds ObservatoryR. Juanola-Parramon, P. Chen, M. Damiano, J. Gersh-Range, T. Groff, J. Kasdin, B. Korzh, J. Krist et al. (21 authors); UCSB: B. MazinExoplanets
    DOI
  5. 05Mar 2025AJ
    MOMOS: The Multi-Object MKID Optical Spectrometer Simulator and Data Reduction PackageC. S. Kim, J. I. Bailey, R. A. López, W. H. Clay, B. A. MazinExoplanets
    arXiv:2503.00663
  6. 06Jan 2025JLTP
    DEEPDISH: A Dark Matter Haloscope Using MKIDsM. Daal, B. MazinExoplanets
    DOI
  7. 07Dec 2024ApJ
    SCExAO/CHARIS Spectroscopic Characterization of Cloudy L/T Transition Companion Brown Dwarf HIP 93398 BB. L. Lewis, Y. Li, A. Gibbs, M. P. Fitzgerald, T. Brandt, D. Bardalez Gagliuffi, Q. An, M. Chen et al. (13 authors); UCSB: B. MazinExoplanets
    arXiv:2411.06003
  8. 08Dec 2024ApPhL
    Characterization of photon arrival timing jitter in microwave kinetic inductance detector arraysM. G. Mohammad, A. Cuda, W. H. Clay, J. P. Smith, M. S. Arena, J. Redford, J. Breckenridge, J. I. Bailey et al. (12 authors); UCSB: B. A. MazinExoplanets
    DOI
  9. 09Nov 2024RScI
    MKIDGen3: Energy-resolving, single-photon-counting microwave kinetic inductance detector readout on a radio frequency system-on-chipJ. P. Smith, J. I. Bailey, A. Cuda, N. Zobrist, B. A. MazinExoplanets
    arXiv:2406.09764
  10. 10Oct 2024ApJ
    Subaru/CHARIS High-resolution Mode Spectroscopy of the Brown Dwarf Companion HD 33632 AbA. B. Gibbs, B. L. Lewis, M. P. Fitzgerald, T. D. Brandt, M. Chen, Y. Li, R. Bowens-Rubin, R. Jensen-Clem et al. (9 authors); UCSB: B. A. MazinExoplanets
    arXiv:2407.17531

All papers by Ben Mazin

Everyone in the group