Cooling out the radiation damage on the XMM-Newton EPIC MOS CCDs

Abstract

The X-ray astronomy satellite XMM-Newton has been in an orbit taking it through the trapped radiation belts and direct solar proton flux during the peak of the current solar cycle for over two and a half years. The MOS CCD detectors (E2V CCD22's) have degraded in charge transfer efficiency (CTE) as a result of damage created by high energy protons. Corrections for CTE in ground software have managed to restore most of the energy loss generated by the trapping sites, but the detector energy resolution has widened due to imperfect correction methods and the statistical noise generated by charge trapping. The detectors have been at -100°C since launch, and they are qualified to operate down to -130°C. Similar CCDs have been irradiated on the ground with 10MeV protons and it was believed that the devices in orbit, although irradiated by much lower fluxes for longer times should exhibit the same improved CTE at lower temperatures. There was also concern that contrary to test devices on the ground, the devices in orbit had been almost continually cold for over 2 years and many bright pixels had developed giving a signal even at -100°C, due possibly to radiation and the impact of micro-meteoroids. Cooling the CCDs in XMM to -120°C demonstrated the expected improvement, and we intend to run both MOS cameras at the new temperature later in the year.