0000000000414244
AUTHOR
K. Heinzinger
The Wide Field Imager of the International X-ray Observatory
The International X-ray Observatory (IXO) will be a joint X-ray observatory mission by ESA, NASA and JAXA. It will have a large effective area (3 m 2 at 1.25 keV) grazing incidence mirror system with good angular resolution (5 arcsec at 0.1–10 keV) and will feature a comprehensive suite of scientific instruments: an X-ray Microcalorimeter Spectrometer, a High Time Resolution Spectrometer, an X-ray Polarimeter, an X-ray Grating Spectrometer, a Hard X-ray Imager and a Wide-Field Imager. The Wide Field Imager (WFI) has a field-of-view of 18 ft � 18 ft. It will be sensitive between 0.1 and 15 keV, offer the full angular resolution of the mirrors and good energy resolution. The WFI will be imple…
DEPFET based Instrumentation for the MIXS focal plane on BepiColombo
BepiColombo, ESA's fifth cornerstone mission, is a planetary exploration mission to Mercury. On board of BepiColombo's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), the MIXS instrument will perform a complete X-ray fluorescence analysis of Mercury's crust with unprecedented spectral and spatial resolution. This is achieved by using a lightweight X-ray mirror system and by using of DEPFET based Macropixel devices as X-ray detectors. DEPFET based Macropixel detectors combine the advantages of the DEPFETs, like flexible readout modes, Fano-limited energy resolution and low power consumption, with the properties of the drift detectors, like arbitrary scalable pixel size and geometry. In addition, the excell…
The DEPFET based Focal Plane Detectors for MIXS on BepiColombo
X-ray detectors based on arrays of DEPFET macropixels, which consist of a silicon drift detector combined with a detector/amplifier structure DEPFET as readout node, provide a convenient and flexible way to adapt the pixel size of a focal plane detector to the resolving power of any given X-ray optical system. Macropixels combine the traditional benefits of an SDD, like scalability, arbitrary geometry and excellent QE even in the low energy range, with the advantages of DEPFET structures: Charge storage capability, near Fano-limited energy resolution, low power consumption and high speed readout. Being part of the scientific payload of ESA's BepiColombo mission, the MIXS instrument will be …