Characterizing the Dark Current of Two Novel Speedster-EXD 550 Detectors
Open Access
Author:
Jennerjahn, Evan
Area of Honors:
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Abe Falcone, Thesis Supervisor William Nielsen Brandt, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
X-Ray HCD CubeSat Telescope Dark Current
Abstract:
For space-based X-ray applications, silicon hybrid CMOS detectors (HCDs) offer many advantages
over CCDs, such as faster readout rates and in-pixel circuitry. Achieving low noise in X-ray
applications of HCDs helps to achieve better energy resolution, so understanding their dark current
and read noise is a high priority. Dark current is temperature dependent, so cooling the detector is
the best way to minimize its effects. Cooling detectors is costly for CubeSats, so it is important to
characterize dark current at the temperatures the detectors will see in orbit. The BlackCAT Cube-
Sat is a Coded Aperture Telescope that will search the soft X-ray sky for high-energy astronomical
transients. It is a 6U CubeSat mission using an array of four Speedster-EXD550 X-ray HCDs.
Here, we analyze the dark current of 2 Speedster-EXD550s.