Our knowledge of the hard-X- and soft-γ-ray sky obtained in the last few years by satellite missions and in particular by SIGMA has demonstrated that in this energy range the next generation of instruments must provide both good imaging over a large field of view and fine spectroscopy over a large energy band. Currently, a possible answer to these requirements may be offered by instruments based on position-sensitive detectors (PSD) constructed of modular arrays of CdTe microspectrometers. CdTe is a room temperature compound semiconductor with high Z that can be grown in large pure crystals and then cut so as produce small spectroscopic devices. By packing these elements into arrays, it is possible to construct highly segmented detectors sensitive from ∼ 10 keV to a few MeV. Due to the intrinsic characteristics of these CdTe microspectrometers, such a PSD would offer fine spatial resolution (down to a few millimetres) and good spectroscopic performance (E/ΔE>50 for E=500 keV). We present experimental results obtained from CdTe microdetectors with various geometrical shapes and sizes. Furthermore, we outline a possible coded-mask telescope design based on a CdTe PDS together with an evaluation of the achievable sensitivity. © 1993 Societàa Italiana di Fisica.
CdTe array spectrometers for X- and γ-ray astronomy / Caroli E.; Baldazzi G.; Di Cocco G.; Donati A.; Dusi W.; Malaguti G.; Stephen J.B.; Trifoglio M.. - In: IL NUOVO CIMENTO DELLA SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI FISICA. C, GEOPHYSICS AND SPACE PHYSICS. - ISSN 1124-1896. - STAMPA. - 16:(1993), pp. 727-733. [10.1007/BF02507871]
CdTe array spectrometers for X- and γ-ray astronomy
Baldazzi G.;
1993
Abstract
Our knowledge of the hard-X- and soft-γ-ray sky obtained in the last few years by satellite missions and in particular by SIGMA has demonstrated that in this energy range the next generation of instruments must provide both good imaging over a large field of view and fine spectroscopy over a large energy band. Currently, a possible answer to these requirements may be offered by instruments based on position-sensitive detectors (PSD) constructed of modular arrays of CdTe microspectrometers. CdTe is a room temperature compound semiconductor with high Z that can be grown in large pure crystals and then cut so as produce small spectroscopic devices. By packing these elements into arrays, it is possible to construct highly segmented detectors sensitive from ∼ 10 keV to a few MeV. Due to the intrinsic characteristics of these CdTe microspectrometers, such a PSD would offer fine spatial resolution (down to a few millimetres) and good spectroscopic performance (E/ΔE>50 for E=500 keV). We present experimental results obtained from CdTe microdetectors with various geometrical shapes and sizes. Furthermore, we outline a possible coded-mask telescope design based on a CdTe PDS together with an evaluation of the achievable sensitivity. © 1993 Societàa Italiana di Fisica.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
