IRAM Plateau de Bure

The Plateau de Bure Interferometer is located at 2550 metres in theFrench Alps, near Gap. The array consists of six 15-metre antennasequipped with a new generation of low-noise dual polarizationheterodyne receivers for the 3, 2 and 1 mm atmospheric windows. At theend of 2008, all the antennas will also be equipped with 0.8 mmreceivers. The recent doubling of the baselines enables to obtainsub-arcsecond angular resolution (0.2-0.3 arcsecond) at the highestfrequencies, comparable to the largest optical telescopes. The signalsfrom the 6 antennas are processed in an IRAM developed digitalcorrelator, which allows for a large variety of observing modes. All 6antennas can be phased up for VLBI experiments and successfulexperiments have been conducted over the years in the global mm-VLBInetwork.