The Hard X-ray Imager on Hitomi
Date: 02 February 2016
Satellite: Hitomi
Depicts: Hard X-ray Imager (HXI)
Copyright: JAXA
This photo shows one of the two detector units of the Hard X-ray Imager (SXI) on the Hitomi satellite.
This imaging system receives photons with energy between 5 keV and 80 keV, focussed by the two 12-m long Hard X-ray Telescopes. The system consists of two detector units, each receiving light from one of the two telescopes. Each unit consists of four layers of 0.5 mm thick Double-sided Silicon Strip Detectors (DSSDs), to absorb photons with energy below 20 keV and reduce the detector background noise, and one layer of 0.75 mm thick CdTe, a double-sided cross-strip detector sensitive to photons with energy between 20 keV and 80 keV.
Hitomi (known as ASTRO-H prior to launch) is a high-energy astrophysics space observatory, developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in collaboration with institutions in Japan, the US, Canada, and Europe.
