Search Publications
Space radiation environment effects on X-ray CCD background
Hall, David J.; Holland, Andrew
Charge coupled devices (CCDs) are often employed as the detector of choice for observing X-rays in space. The instrument background experienced in orbit has a major impact on the overall sensitivity of the camera system. The instrument background for the European Space Agency X-ray Multi Mirror (XMM-Newton) mission was found to be much greater in …
X-ray tracing using Geant4
Vacanti, G.; Buis, E. J.
We describe an extension to the Geant4 software package that allows it to be used as a general purpose X-ray tracing package. We demonstrate the use of our extension by building a model of the X-ray optics of the X-ray observatory XMM-Newton, calculating its effective area, and comparing the results with the published calibration curves.
INTEGRAL high energy sky: The keV to MeV cosmic sources
Ubertini, Pietro; Bazzano, Angela; Bassani, Loredana +2 more
After almost 5 years of operation, ESA's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) Space Observatory has unveiled a new soft gamma-ray sky and produced a remarkable harvest of results, ranging from identification of new high energy sources, to the discovery of dozens of variable sources to the mapping of the aluminum emission from…
Next generation of pnCCDs for X-ray spectroscopy and imaging
Meidinger, Norbert; Strüder, Lothar; Herrmann, Sven +10 more
A special type of charge-coupled device, the pnCCD, has been developed in the nineties as focal-plane detector for the X-ray astronomy mission XMM-Newton of the European Space Agency. The pnCCD detector has been in operation since the satellite launch in 1999. It is performing up to date spectroscopy of X-rays in combination with imaging and high …
DEPFET development at the MPI semiconductor laboratory
Lutz, Gerhard
The DEPFET device concept offers unique properties that make it useful for applications in X-ray astronomy and particle physics as well as in other fields. They form the basis for two major projects of the MPI Semiconductor Laboratory. This survey reviews device concepts, potential, technology and properties of devices produced at the laboratory. …
Cooling out the radiation damage on the XMM-Newton EPIC MOS CCDs
Altieri, B.; Bennie, P. J.; Turner, M. J. L. +2 more
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…
pnCCDs on XMM-Newton—42 months in orbit
Haberl, Frank; Freyberg, Michael; Dennerl, Konrad +11 more
XMM-Newton—a cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency's Horizon 2000 programme—was launched on December 10, 1999 into orbit. Since March 2000 more than 2000 scientific observations were made. An example will be shown. The X-ray pnCCD camera on EPIC is operating since then without severe problems. We will report about the system performance…
Direct measurement of sub-pixel structure of the EPIC MOS CCD on-board the XMM//NEWTON satellite
Bennie, P. J.; Turner, M. J. L.; Abbey, A. F. +3 more
We have used a mesh experiment in order to measure the sub-pixel structure of the EPIC MOS CCDs on-board the XMM/NEWTON satellite. The EPIC MOS CCDs have 40 µm-square pixels which have an open electrode structure in order to improve the detection efficiency for low-energy X-rays. We obtained restored pixel images for various X-ray event grad…
Novel pixel detectors for X-ray astronomy and other applications
Strüder, L.; Lutz, G.; Richter, R. H.
Following previous work in particle physics, the MPI Semiconductor Laboratory has been founded with the purpose of developing novel semiconductor detectors for particle physics and X-ray astronomy. A short description of the already successfully concluded development of pn-CCDs for focal imaging in X-ray astronomy (XMM//Newton X-ray Observatory) i…
High-resolution imaging X-ray spectrometers
Strüder, L.
The successful commissioning of the XMM-Newton focal plane detectors, radiation hard X-ray imaging spectroscopic CCDs, has attracted some attention: Reliably operating X-ray CCDs are delivering extraordinary images, recorded in a single-photon counting mode, imaged through the largest X-ray telescope ever built. The experimental boundary condition…