THIS PROGRAM WILL DEVELOP AND CHARACTERIZE ULTRA-SENSITIVE ON-CHIP SPECTROMETERS COVERING THE SUB-MM AND MM-WAVELENGTH OBSERVING BANDS FROM 3 MM TO 230 MICRONS. THIS BUILDS UPON A SUCCESSFUL PROGRAM SUPERSPEC WHICH HAS DEMONSTRATED THE BASIC FILTER BANK OPERATION A PROOF OF PRINCIPLE THAT LARGE-FORMAT SPECTROGRAPHS FOR THE FAR-IR AND SUBMILLIMETER CAN BE MINIATURIZED ONTO SILICON CHIPS. USING SUPERCONDUCTING MM-WAVE TRANSMISSION LINE COMPONENTS AND EXTREMELY SMALL-VOLUME KINETIC INDUCTANCE DETECTORS (KIDS) WE HAVE CONSTRUCTED AND ARE CURRENTLY PREPARING TO DEPLOY A GROUND-BASED DEMONSTRATION INSTRUMENT COVERING THE 1 MM ATMOSPHERIC BAND. THIS IS A KEY ENABLING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE NEXT-GENERATION CRYOGENICALLY-COOLED FAR-IR FLIGHT MISSIONS AS WELL AS NEAR-FUTURE SUB-ORBITAL PLATFORMS SUCH AS BALLOON-BASED SPECTROMETERS AND FUTURE SOFIA INSTRUMENTS. HOWEVER OBTAINING FULL SCIENTIFIC RETURN FROM THESE POWERFUL FUTURE FAR-IR MISSIONS REQUIRES 3 CRUCIAL ADVANCES IN THE SUPERSPEC FILER BANK TECHNOLOGY: (1) IMPROVING FILTER BANK LOSS BY A FACTOR OF>10; (2) IMPROVING THE DETECTOR SENSITIVITY IN ORDER TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE LOW-BACKGROUND SPACE PLATFORMS; (3) EXTENDING OPERATION FROM THE MM-WAVE TO 230 MICRONS. IN ORDER TO MEET THESE GOALS WE WILL BUILD ON OUR EXPERIENCE WITH SUPER SPEC AS WELL AS ADVANCES IN DIELECTRIC MATERIAL QUALITY FABRICATION TECHNIQUES AND KINETIC-INDUCTANCE DETECTOR (KID) DESIGN APPROACHES TO ACCOMPLISH EACH OF THESE GOALS. A SUCCESSFUL DEMONSTRATION OF THESE TECHNOLOGIES WILL NOT ONLY BENEFIT FUTURE SPECTROSCOPIC INSTRUMENTS BUT WILL BE IMMEDIATELY USEFUL FOR INSTRUMENTS OPERATING IN THE SUBMM AND FOR KID-BASED INSTRUMENTS DESIGNED FOR A WIDE RANGE OF SCIENCE TARGETS. WE WILL BEGIN BY ADJUSTING THE FILTER BANK ELECTROMAGNETIC DESIGN FOR A SILICON INNER LAYER DIELECTRIC AS THIS PROMISES FACTORS OF UP TO 50 TIMES LOWER LOSS THAN THE CURRENT MATERIALS. WE WILL BUILD AND TEST SILICON-DIELECTRIC PROTOTYPES BEGINNING AT THE CURRENT 200--300 GHZ BAND BUT THEN MOVING UP TO THE 400--700 GHZ BAND. WE WILL EXPLORE BOTH DEPOSITED AMORPHOUS SILICON (A-SI) USING A NEW LOWLOSS RECIPE AS WELL AS A CRYSTALLINE SILICON (C-SI) ''FLIPED-SOI" PROCESS USING SILICON-ON-OXIDE (SOI) WAFERS. MEANWHILE WE WILL DEVELOP MORE SENSITIVE KIDS TO EMBED IN THE SPECTROMETERS. IN PARTICULAR WE WILL ADAPT OUR SPECTROMETER DESIGN TO ACCOMMODATE VERY SMALL VOLUME ALUMINUM KIDS WHICH PROMISES SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS IN SENSITIVITY REQUIRED FOR LOW-LOADING APPLICATIONS. FINALLY WE WILL EXPLORE SUPERCONDUCTING TRANSMISSION LINES MADE FROM BOTH SPUTTERED AND ATOMIC LAYER DEPOSITED (ALD) NBTIN AND NBN. THESE MATERIALS HAVE A TRANSITION TEMPERATURE MUCH HIGHER THAN NIOBIUM AND SHOULD ALLOW US TO EXTEND THE OPERATION OF OUR BASIC FILTER BANK ARCHITECTURE TO THZ FREQUENCIES. IN ADDITION TO A NUMBER OF TEST STRUCTURES SAMPLE DEVICES WE WILL PRODUCE A SERIES OF FOUR DEMONSTRATION PIXELS: [FB-1]: A PROTOTYPE COVERING THE FULL 200-300 GHZ BAND WITH RESOLVING POWER (R) OF AT LEAST 1000 AND NEGLIGIBLE DIELECTRIC LOSS. [FB-2]: A SIMILARLY LOWLOSS SUBMM PROTOTYPE COVERING THE 850-650 MICRON BANDS WITH SIMILAR RESOLVING POWERS. [FB-HR]: A MM-WAVELENGTH DEVICE DESIGNED TO ACHIEVE THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE RESOLVING POWERS TARGETING R~5000. [FB-T]: A SPARSE FILTER BANK COVERING REGIONS OF THE 0.8-1.3 THZ FILTER BANK TO DEMONSTRATE HIGH-FREQUENCY OPERATION. THE FIRST THREE OF THESE DEVICES ARE INTENDED TO BE FIELD-READY AT THE CONCLUSION OF THIS PROGRAM AND THE FOURTH EASILY ADAPTED FOR FUTURE INSTRUMENTS.