  Integrated superconducting spectrometers (ISSs) for wideband sub-mm astronomy
utilise quasi-optical systems for coupling radiation from the telescope to the
instrument. Misalignment in these systems is detrimental to the system
performance. The common method of using an optical laser to align the
quasi-optical components requires accurate alignment of the laser to the sub-mm
beam coming from the instrument, which is not always guaranteed to a sufficient
accuracy. We develop an alignment strategy for wideband ISSs directly utilising
the sub-mm beam of the wideband ISS. The strategy should be applicable in both
telescope and laboratory environments. Moreover, the strategy should deliver
similar quality of the alignment across the spectral range of the wideband ISS.
We measure misalignment in a quasi-optical system operating at sub-mm
wavelengths using a novel phase and amplitude measurement scheme, capable of
simultaneously measuring the complex beam patterns of a direct-detecting ISS
across a harmonic range of frequencies. The direct detection nature of the MKID
detectors in our device-under-test, DESHIMA 2.0, necessitates the use of this
measurement scheme. Using geometrical optics, the measured misalignment, a
mechanical hexapod, and an optimisation algorithm, we follow a numerical
approach to optimise the positioning of corrective optics with respect to a
given cost function. Laboratory measurements of the complex beam patterns are
taken across a harmonic range between 205 and 391 GHz and simulated through a
model of the ASTE telescope in order to assess the performance of the
optimisation at the ASTE telescope. Laboratory measurements show that the
optimised optical setup corrects for tilts and offsets of the sub-mm beam.
Moreover, we find that the simulated telescope aperture efficiency is increased
across the frequency range of the ISS after the optimisation.
