W. R. Cook

PET: a proton/electron telescope for studies of magnetospheric, solar, and galactic particles

The proton/electron telescope (PET) on SAMPEX (Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer) is designed to provide measurements of energetic electrons and light nuclei from solar, Galactic, and magnetospheric sources. PET is an all solid-state system that will measure the differential energy spectra of electrons from approximately 1 to approximately 30 MeV and H and He nuclei from approximately 20 to approximately 300 MeV/nucleon, with isotope resolution of H and He extending from approximately 20 to approximately 80 MeV/nucleon. As SAMPEX scans all local times and geomagnetic cutoffs over the course of its near-polar orbit, PET will characterize precipitating relativistic electron events during periods of declining solar activity, and it will examine whether the production rate of odd nitrogen and hydrogen molecules in the middle atmosphere by precipitating electrons is sufficient to affect O/sub 3/ depletion. In addition, PET will complement studies of the elemental and isotopic composition of energetic heavy (Z>2) nuclei on SAMPEX by providing measurements of H, He, and electrons. Finally, PET has limited capability to identify energetic positrons from potential natural and man-made sources. >

Properties of Pt Schottky Type Contacts on High-Resistivity CdZnTe Detectors

In this paper, we present studies of the I- V characteristics of CdZnTe (CZT) detectors with Pt contacts fabricated from high-resistivity single crystals grown by the high-pressure Bridgman process. We have analyzed the experimental I- V curves using a model that approximates the CZT detector as a system consisting of a reversed Schottky contact, in series with the bulk resistance. Least-square fit to the experimental data yields 0.78- 0.79 eV for the Pt-CZT Schottky barrier height, and <20V for the voltage required to deplete a 2mm thick CZT detector. We demonstrate that, at high bias, the thermionic current over the Schottky barrier, the height of which is reduced due to an interfacial layer between the contact and CZT material, controls the leakage current of the detectors. In many cases, the dark current is not determined by the resistivity of the bulk material, but rather the properties of the contacts; namely, by the interfacial layer between the contact and CZT material.

MAST: a mass spectrometer telescope for studies of the isotopic composition of solar, anomalous, and galactic cosmic ray nuclei

The mass spectrometer telescope (MAST) on SAMPEX (Solar, Anomalous, and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer) is designed to provide high-resolution measurements of the isotopic composition of energetic nuclei from He to Ni (Z=2 to 28) over the energy range from approximately 10 to several hundred MeV/nucleon. During large solar flares MAST will measure the isotopic abundances of solar energetic particles to determine directly the composition of the solar corona, while during solar quiet times MAST will study the isotopic composition of galactic cosmic rays. In addition, MAST will measure the isotopic composition of both interplanetary and trapped fluxes of anomalous cosmic rays, believed to be a sample of the nearby interstellar medium. >

Charge Loss between contacts of CdZnTe pixel detectors

The surface of Cd_(1−x)Zn_xTe (CZT) material has high resistivity but is not a perfect dielectric. Even a small surface conductivity can affect the electric field distribution, and therefore, the charge collection efficiency of a CZT pixel detector. The paper describes studies of this phenomenon for several contact configurations made on a single CZT detector. We have determined the maximum inter-contact separation at which the surface inter-pixel charge loss can be neglected.

Gamma-Ray Imaging with a Rotating Hexagonal Uniformly Redundant Array

Laboratory experiments have been performed to demonstrate the capabilities of a ¿-ray imaging system employing a NaI Anger camera and a rotating coded aperture mask. The mask incorporates in its design a new type of hexagonal uniformly redundant array (HURA) which is essentially antisymmetric under 60° rotation. The image formation techniques are described and results are presented that demonstrate the imaging capability of the system for individual and multiple point sources of ¿-ray emission. The results are cornpared to analytical predictions for the imaging and point source localization capabilities of coded aperture systems using continuous detectors.

Elemental composition of solar energetic particles

The Low Energy Telescopes on the Voyager spacecraft are used to measure the elemental composition (2 ≤ Z ≤ 28) and energy spectra (5 to 15 MeV /nucleon) of solar energetic particles (SEPs) in seven large flare events. Four flare events are selected which have SEP abundance ratios approximately independent of energy/nucleon. The abundances for these events are compared from flare to flare and are compared to solar abundances from other sources: spectroscopy of the photosphere and corona, and solar wind measurements. The selected SEP composition results may be described by an average composition plus a systematic flare-to-flare deviation about the average. For each of the four events, the ratios of the SEP abundances to the four-flare average SEP abundances are approximately monotonic functions of nuclear charge Z in the range 6 ≤ Z ≤ 28. An exception to this Z-dependent trend occurs for He, whose abundance relative to Si is nearly the same in all four events. The four-flare average SEP composition is significantly different from the solar composition determined by photospheric spectroscopy: The elements C, N and O are depleted in SEPs by a factor of about five relative to the elements Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Cr, Fe and Ni. For some elemental abundance ratios (e.g. Mg/O), the difference between SEP and photospheric results is persistent from flare to flare and is apparently not due to a systematic difference in SEP energy/nucleon spectra between the elements, nor to propagation effects which would result in a time-dependent abundance ratio in individual flare events. The four-flare average SEP composition is in agreement with solar wind abundance results and with a number of recent coronal abundance measurements. The evidence for a common depletion of oxygen in SEPs, the corona and the solar wind relative to the photosphere suggests that the SEPs originate in the corona and that both the SEPs and solar wind sample a coronal composition which is significantly and persistently different from that of the photosphere.

Development of the High-Energy Focusing Telescope (HEFT) balloon experiment

The High Energy Focusing Telescope (HEFT) is a balloon-borne experiment employing focusing optics in the hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray band (20 - 100 keV) for sensitive observations of astrophysical sources. The primary scientific objectives include imaging and spectroscopy of 44Ti emission in young supernova remnants, sensitive hard X-ray observations of obscured Active Galactic Nuclei, and spectroscopic observations of accreting high-magnetic field pulsars. Over the last four years, we have developed grazing-incidence depth-graded multilayer optics and high spectral resolution solid stat Cadmium Zinc Telluride pixel detectors in order to assemble a balloon-borne experiment with sensitivity and imaging capability superior to previous satellite missions operating in this band. In this paper, we describe the instrument design, and present recent laboratory demonstrations of the optics and detector technologies.

A Thick Anger Camera for Gamma-Ray Astronomy

The NaI(Tl) Anger camera is a natural candidate for a position sensitive detector in imaging of astrophysical ¿-ray sources. Here we present laboratory measurements of the response of a relatively thick (5.1 cm) NaI(Tl) Anger camera designed for coded aperture imaging in the 50 keV to 2 MeV energy range. We obtained a position resolution of 10.5 mm FWHM at 122 keV and 6.3 mm FWHM at 662 keV. The energy resolution was 7% FWHM at 662 keV. We discuss the ability of the detector to resolve the depth of the ¿-ray interaction and the use of this depth resolution to reduce back-incident and internal background.

Numerical modelling of charge-sharing in CdZnTe pixel detectors

In this paper, we describe our study of charge-sharing events in CdZnTe detectors being developed for the HEFT telescope. We specify the detector design, and discuss an experiment we have performed to investigate charge sharing between pixels. We have also developed a numerical model to study the charge transport in the detector. It emulates the physical processes of charge transport within the CdZnTe crystal, especially the process of drift. We discuss this numerical model of the detector in detail. With our numerical model, we are able to reproduce the general features of the charge-sharing events. We have found that the amount of charge loss is very sensitive to the surface /spl mu//spl tau/, the product of charge mobility and trapping time, of CdZnTe; we present estimates of (/spl mu//spl tau/)/sub surface/ from our model. Further work will focus on more detailed analysis of diffusion, in order to gain a complete understanding of these charge-sharing events in CdZnTe pixel detectors.

Effects of bulk and surface conductivity on the performance of CdZnTe pixel detectors

We studied the effects of bulk and surface conductivity on the performance of high-resistivity CdZnTe (CZT) pixel detectors with Pt contacts. We emphasize the difference in mechanisms of the bulk and surface conductivity as indicated by their different temperature behaviors. In addition, the existence of a thin (10-100 /spl Aring/) oxide layer on the surface of CZT, formed during the fabrication process, affects both bulk and surface leakage currents. We demonstrate that the measured I-V dependencies of bulk current can be explained by considering the CZT detector as a metal-semiconductor-metal system with two back-to-back Schottky-barrier contacts. The high-surface leakage current is apparently due to the presence of a low-resistivity surface layer that has characteristics that differ considerably from those of the bulk material. This surface layer has a profound effect on the charge-collection efficiency in detectors with multicontact geometry; some fraction of the electric field lines that originated on the cathode intersects the surface areas between the pixel contacts where the charge produced by an ionizing particle gets trapped. To overcome this effect, we place a grid of thin electrodes between the pixel contacts. When the grid is negatively biased, the strong electric field in the gaps between the pixels forces the electrons landing on the surface to move toward the contacts, preventing the charge loss. We have investigated these effects by using CZT pixel detectors indium bump-bonded to a custom-built VLSI readout chip.