Advanced technology lunar telescopes III. Radiation resistant detectors

Conference · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1993 · American Astronomical Society, Bulletin; (United States)

OSTI ID:7117677

Payne, L J; Kimble, R A; Smith, A M; Haas, J P; Sturgell, Jr, C C; Wentink, R E; Carbone, J; Chen, P C

A practical lunar telescope requires high resolution imaging array detectors that are immune to (or can be easily shielded from) solar flare particle radiation and cosmic rays. Charge-coupled devices (CCDs), the detectors of choice for ground-based applications, fall short in this respect because of their high susceptibility to radiation induced bulk traps and loss of charge transfer efficiency (CTE). Blooming in CCDs also limits the dynamic range and degrades resolution, while the well known red leak problem hinders observations in the ultraviolet. The authors describe an ongoing program at NASA GSFC to develop intensified random-access Charge-Injection Devices (CIDs), a new generation of space uv detectors which do not have the shortcomings of CCDs. CIDs, like CCDs, are silicon array detectors. Unlike CCDs, however, CIDs have more than 100x greater tolerance to ionizing particle radiation. Since CIDs do not transfer charge, CTE degradation has very little effect on the overall sensitivity and noise level. CIDs can perform extremely fast windowing of selected regions of interest with high signal levels (e.g. bright cores of galaxies or strong emission lines, etc) while monitoring the remainder of the array at lower rates. This selective readout ability plus the lack of blooming give CIDs a high dynamic range of operation but with minimal demands on the memory storage and telemetry data bandwidth. The authors demonstrate the operation of a row-windowing CID and discuss the potential applications of these devices to astronomical research from the moon.

• OSTI ID: 7117677
• Report Number(s): CONF-940177-; CODEN: AASBAR
• Journal Information: American Astronomical Society, Bulletin; (United States), Vol. 25:4; Conference: 183. meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Washington, DC (United States), 11-15 Jan 1994; ISSN 0002-7537
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
SEMICONDUCTOR DETECTORS
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
TELESCOPES
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION
RADIATION DETECTION
CHARGE-COUPLED DEVICES
COSMIC RADIATION
MOON
SILICON
SOLAR FLARES
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
DETECTION
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTS
IONIZING RADIATIONS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
RADIATION DETECTORS
RADIATION EFFECTS
RADIATIONS
SATELLITES
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SEMIMETALS
SOLAR ACTIVITY
440200* - Radiation Effects on Instrument Components
Instruments
or Electronic Systems
440600 - Optical Instrumentation- (1990-)