The wide-field imager for IXO: status and future activities

Publication date: 30 July 2010

Authors: Strüeder, L., et al.

Journal: Proc. SPIE
Volume: 7732
Year: 2010

Copyright: SPIE

The Wide Field Imager (WFI) of the International X-ray Observatory (IXO) is an X-ray imaging spectrometer based on a large monolithic DePFET (Depleted P-channel Field Effect Transistor) Active Pixel Sensor. Filling an area of 10 x 10 cm² with a format of 1024 x 1024 pixels it will cover a field of view of 18 arcmin. The pixel size of 100 x 100 microns² corresponds to a fivefold oversampling of the telescope's expected 5 arcsec point spread function. The WFI's basic DePFET structure combines the functionalities of sensor and integrated amplifier with nearly Fano-limited energy resolution and high efficiency from 100 eV to 15 keV. The development of dedicated control and amplifier ASICs allows for high frame rates up to 1 kHz and flexible readout modes. Results obtained with representative prototypes with a format of 256 x 256 pixels are presented.

This paper was presented at the SPIE conference on Astronomical Instrumentation 2010 conference.

Link to Publication: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.856628

Last Update: 13 September 2010