For ALMA’s Observatory Scientist, John Carpenter, the main drivers for Band 1 development are “probing the evolution of dust grains as planets form in circumstellar disks; and detecting molecular gas in re-ionization epoch galaxies”. Thanks to this the observatory will be able to detect distant objects with higher redshifts because of the sensitivity to twice longer wavelengths.

ALMA observes the Universe in radio waves: light that is invisible to the human eye. The weak electromagnetic glow from space is captured by the array of 66 antennas. Their receivers transform this weak radiation into an electrical signal.

To scout a broad range of frequencies, ALMA antennas Front End are equipped with up to ten different receivers, each one specially designed to cover a specific range of wavelengths. The Band 1 covers a range of wavelengths from 6 to 8.5 millimeters (frequencies from 35 to 52 GHz). To date there are seven receivers that have already been developed and installed in each of the ALMA antennas. Band 5 cartridges are being constructed and delivered until 2017 and are being integrated to the antennas as they arrive. Band 2 is going to be completed in the future.

The ASIAA-developed Band 1 receiver is remarkable in its low noise, high sensitivity and high dynamic range of signal-receiving. "Technical requirements for ALMA Band 1 receivers, due to the physical properties of this particular frequency band, are far more stringent than any other existing receiver systems”, said Ted Huang, Band 1 Project Manager at ASIAA, Taiwan.

“The fact that the ALMA Board approves Band 1 confirms the excellent technical level of all the members of the partnership”, says Ricardo Finger, part of the Band 1 team from the Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies at Universidad de Chile, that will be responsible for two components of the optics: the horn antenna and a Fresnel lens. A total of 73 sets of receivers are to be manufactured and delivered by the end of 2019 and integrated during the first quarter of 2020.

The development of the ALMA Band 1 receiver took ten years. Since eight years ago, ASIAA led the project which was joined by an international team comprises of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the University of Chile, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics (HIA) and the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST).