Background measurements from balloon-borne imaging CZT detectors

Jonathan A. Jenkins; Tomohiko Narita; Jonathan E. Grindlay; Peter Forbes Bloser; Carl Michael Stahle; Bradford H. Parker; Scott D. Barthelmy

doi:10.1117/12.461537

11 March 2003 Background measurements from balloon-born imaging CZT detectors

Jonathan A. Jenkins, Tomohiko Narita, Jonathan E. Grindlay, Peter Forbes Bloser, Carl Michael Stahle, Bradford H. Parker, Scott D. Barthelmy

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 4851, X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Telescopes and Instruments for Astronomy; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.461537
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

We report detector characteristics and background measurements from two prototype imaging CdZnTe (CZT) detectors flown on a scientific balloon payload in May 2001. The detectors are both platinum-contact 10 mm × 10 mm × 5 mm CZT crystals, each with a 4 × 4 array of pixels tiling the anode. One is made from IMARAD horizontal Bridgman CZT, the other from eV Products high-pressure Bridgman CZT. Both detectors were mounted side-by-side in a flip-chip configuration and read out by a 32-channel IDE VA/TA ASIC preamp/shaper. We enclosed the detectors in the same 40o field-of-view collimator used in our previously-reported September 2000 flight. I-V curves for the detectors are diode-like, and we find that the platinum contacts adhere significantly better to the CZT surfaces than gold to previosu detectors. The detectors and instrumentation performed well in a 20-hour balloon flight on 23/24 May 2001. Although we discovered a significant instrumental background component in flight, it was possible to measure and subtract this component from the spectra. The resulting IMARAD detector background spectrum reaches ~5×10^-3 counts cm^-2s^-1keV^-1 at 100 keV and has a power-law index of ~2 at hgih energies. The eV Products detector has a similar spectrum, although there is more uncertainty in the enregy scale because of calibration complications.

Citation Download Citation

Jonathan A. Jenkins, Tomohiko Narita, Jonathan E. Grindlay, Peter Forbes Bloser, Carl Michael Stahle, Bradford H. Parker, and Scott D. Barthelmy "Background measurements from balloon-born imaging CZT detectors", Proc. SPIE 4851, X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Telescopes and Instruments for Astronomy, (11 March 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.461537

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