Wideband observation of the Crab pulsar using a superconducting transition-edge sensor

Aaron J. Miller; Blas Cabrera; Roger W. Romani; R. M. Clarke; Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano; Sae Woo Nam

doi:10.1117/12.371082

25 November 1999 Wideband observation of the Crab pulsar using a superconducting transition-edge sensor

Aaron J. Miller, Blas Cabrera, Roger W. Romani, R. M. Clarke, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, Sae Woo Nam

Proceedings Volume 3764, Ultraviolet and X-Ray Detection, Spectroscopy, and Polarimetry III; (1999) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.371082
Event: SPIE's International Symposium on Optical Science, Engineering, and Instrumentation, 1999, Denver, CO, United States

Abstract

Our detectors are superconducting transition edge sensors (TESs) optimized for the wide band detection of individual photons from the mid infrared, through the optical, and into the near ultraviolet. We typically achieve an energy resolution of 0.15 eV FWHM over this range with timing resolution of 100 ns. We have measured photon events with sub- microsecond rise times and 3 microsecond fall times allowing count rates as high as 30 kHz without significant degradation in energy resolution. Such characteristics along with the predicted high quantum efficiency (10% in IR to 50% in optical-UV) make our TES detectors very appealing for low-flux applications which have energy and timing requirements, such as fast spectrophotometry for observational astronomy. We present results from our recent observation of the Crab Pulsar (PSR BO531 + 21) which demonstrate the ability of our sensors to extract wide band phase-resolved spectroscopic information of the pulsar using the student-class 24 inch telescope on the campus of Stanford University. We present a description of the optical system and an analysis of the single pixel energy response.

Citation Download Citation

Aaron J. Miller, Blas Cabrera, Roger W. Romani, R. M. Clarke, Enectali Figueroa-Feliciano, and Sae Woo Nam "Wideband observation of the Crab pulsar using a superconducting transition-edge sensor", Proc. SPIE 3764, Ultraviolet and X-Ray Detection, Spectroscopy, and Polarimetry III, (25 November 1999); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.371082

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