A CdTe position sensitive spectrometer for hard X- and soft γ-ray polarimetry

Coded Imager and Polarimeter for High Energy Radiation (CIPHER) is a hard X- and soft gamma- ray spectroscopic and polarimetric coded mask telescope based on an array of Cadmium telluride microspectrometers. The position sensitive detector (PSD) will be arranged in 4 modules of 32 x 32 crystals, each of 2 x 2 mm(2) cross-section and 10 mm thickness giving a total active area of about 160 cm(2), operating over a wide energy range (similar to10 keV to 1 MeV). Each PSD module is obtained by aligning 32 linear arrays of micro-detectors each also containing the integrated analog front end electronics on a thin ceramic layer. The CIPHER instrument will be proposed for a balloon experiment, both i…