We report a development status of a focal plane detector for the GEO-X (GEOspace X-ray imager) mission that will perform soft X-ray (≤2 keV) imaging spectroscopy of Earth’s magnetosphere from a micro satellite. The mission instrument consists of a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) X-ray mirror and a focal plane detector. A sensor with fine positional resolution and moderate energy resolution in the energy band of 0.3 to 2 keV is required. Because the observing target is the magnetosphere around the day-side Earth, the visible-light background must be decreased by shortening the integration time for readout. To satisfy the above requirements, a high-speed X-ray CMOS sensor is being evaluated as a primary candidate for the detector. Irradiating the flight candidate sensor with monochromatic X-rays, we obtained the energy resolution of 205 eV (FWHM) at 6 keV by cooling the devices to −15°C. Radiation tolerance of the sensor, especially in terms of total dose effect, is investigated with 100 MeV proton. The amount of degradation of energy resolution is <50 eV up to 10 krad, which ensures that we will be able to track and calibrate the change of the line width in orbit.
GEOspace X-ray imager (GEO-X) is a small satellite mission aiming at visualization of the Earth’s magnetosphere by X-rays and revealing dynamic couplings between solar wind and the magnetosphere. In-situ spacecraft have revealed various phenomena in the magnetosphere. X-ray astronomy satellite observations recently discovered soft X-ray emissions originating from the magnetosphere. We are developing GEO-X by integrating innovative technologies of a wide field of view (FOV) X-ray instrument and a small satellite for deep space exploration. The satellite combines a Cubesat and a hybrid kick motor, which can produce a large delta v to increase the altitude of the orbit to about 30 to 60 RE from a relatively low-altitude (e.g., geo transfer orbit) piggyback launch. GEO-X carries a wide FOV (5 × 5 deg) and a good spatial resolution (10 arcmin) X-ray (0.3 to 2 keV) imaging spectrometer using a micro-machined X-ray telescope and a CMOS detector system combined with an optical blocking filter. We aim to launch the satellite around the solar maximum of solar cycle 25.
We are developing an x-ray CMOS detector for the GEO-X (GEOspace x-ray imager) mission that will perform soft x-ray (≤2 keV) imaging spectroscopy of Earth’s magnetosphere using a micro satellite. The mission instrument consists of a MEMS x-ray mirror and a focal plane detector. For the latter, we need a sensor with fine positional resolution and moderate energy resolution in the energy band of 0.3 to 2 keV. Because we observe the day-side structure of the earth’s magnetosphere, visible-light background must be decreased by shortening the integration time for readout. To satisfy the above requirements, a high-speed x-ray CMOS sensor is being evaluated as a primary candidate for the detector. We adopt back-side illuminated sensors that have been originally developed for visible-light or UV imaging. The sensors have different specification in terms of the thickness of epitaxial wafer and specific resistance. Irradiating sensors with monochromatic x-rays from 55Fe, we obtained the energy resolution of 205 and 227 eV (FWHM) depending on the sensor type for single pixel events at 6 keV by cooling down the sensor to −15°C. On the other hand, we found that the pulse height of the events whose charges spread over multiple pixels are significantly lower than that of single pixel events in some chips. Then we selected the chips that shows better charge collection efficiency as flight candidate. Radiation tolerance of the sensor, especially in terms of total dose effect, is investigated with 100 MeV proton. The amount of dose ranges up to 100 krad depending on position in the sensor. In spite of the excessive dose compared with 10 krad/yr in the expected highly elliptical orbit, Mn Kα and Kβ are well resolved. The amount of degradation of energy resolution is less than 50 eV up to 10 krad, which ensures that we will be able to track and calibrate the change of the line width in orbit We also utilize multi-color x-rays to investigate spectroscopic performance in the energy band of 0.5 to 7 keV. Multiple lines below 1 keV are resolved and energy resolutions are evaluated as well as linearity performance.
We report development status of an X-ray imaging spectrometer for scientific micro satellite mission GEO-X that aims for imaging of Earth’s magnetosphere from the vicinity of the Moon (∼40 RE). The planned direction for the observations includes proximity of the day-side Earth. Therefore the primary requirement for the detector is the fast frame rate to decrease the visible light background. In this regard we will apply complementary MOS (CMOS) sensor that is originally fabricated for the visible light and/or infrared spectroscopy. Faster readout speed improves time resolution and decrease the contribution from visible light compared with the conventional CCD detectors. We evaluate imaging and spectroscopic performances of backside illumination type scientific CMOS sensors with low noise performance. Most of the signals produced by X-rays distributes within 2 by 2 pixels. Spectra of monochromatic X-rays exhibit significant difference of pulse height between the event within single pixel and that spreads across multiple pixels, which indicates that a part of the signal charges are lost around the pixel edges. Then we adopt another type of the sensor that have been updated in terms of the incident surface treatment. We found that the amount of the lost charges are substantially decreased with the new sensor. Another measure to improve the spectroscopic performance is the dark level determination. Gradual or discontinuous change of the dark level in orbit might it difficult to evaluate the appropriate dark level especially for the high frame rate and the limited resources of onboard computer. Then we take the average of pulse heights for the outermost pixels in a event (5 by 5 pixels) and correct the pulse height of all pixels with the average value. With these measures the energy resolution improved successfully.
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