Selection of the infrared detectors for Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope

Massimo Robberto; Massimo Stiavelli; Sylvia M. Baggett; Bryan Hilbert; John W. MacKenty; Randy A. Kimble; Robert J. Hill; David A. Cottingham; Gregory Delo; Scott D. Johnson; Wayne Landsman; Eliot M. Malumuth; Elizabeth J. Polidan; Anne Marie Russell; Augustyn Waczynski; Edward Wassell; Yiting Wen; Allan K. Haas; John T. Montroy; Eric C. Piquette; Kadri Vural; Craig A. Cabelli; Donald N. B. Hall

doi:10.1117/12.507334

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12 January 2004 Selection of the infrared detectors for Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope

Massimo Robberto; Massimo Stiavelli; Sylvia M. Baggett; Bryan Hilbert; John W. MacKenty; Randy A. Kimble; Robert J. Hill; David A. Cottingham; Gregory Delo; Scott D. Johnson; Wayne Landsman; Eliot M. Malumuth; Elizabeth J. Polidan; Anne Marie Russell; Augustyn Waczynski; Edward Wassell; Yiting Wen; Allan K. Haas; John T. Montroy; Eric C. Piquette; Kadri Vural; Craig A. Cabelli; Donald N. B. Hall

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Proceedings Volume 5167, Focal Plane Arrays for Space Telescopes; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.507334
Event: Optical Science and Technology, SPIE's 48th Annual Meeting, 2003, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Wide Field Camera 3 is a fourth generation instrument for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), to be installed during the next HST Servicing Mission 4. For its infrared channel Rockwell Scientific Company has developed a new type of HgCdTe 1Kx1K detector, called WFC3-1R, with cutoff wavelength at 1.7μm and 150K operating temperature. The WFC3-IR detectors are based on HgCdTe MBE grown on a CdZnTe substrate and use a new type of multiplexer, the Hawaii-1R MUX. Two flight detectors, a prime and a spare, have been recently selected on the basis of the measures performed at NASA Goddard Research Center - Detector Characterization Laboratory. These parts show quantum efficiency higher than 80% at λ=1.6μm and greater than 40% at λ>1.1μm, readout noise of ~25 e- rms with double correlated sampling, and mean dark current of ~0.04 e/s/pix at 150K. We show that the IR channel of WFC3, equipped with one of these flight detectors, beats the instrument requirements in all configurations and promises to have a discovery efficiency significantly higher than NICMOS. In particular, a two-band wide-area, deep survey made with WFC3 exceeds the discovery efficiency of NICMOS before and after the installation of NCS by a factor of 15 and 10, respectively.

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Massimo Robberto, Massimo Stiavelli, Sylvia M. Baggett, Bryan Hilbert, John W. MacKenty, Randy A. Kimble, Robert J. Hill, David A. Cottingham, Gregory Delo, Scott D. Johnson, Wayne Landsman, Eliot M. Malumuth, Elizabeth J. Polidan, Anne Marie Russell, Augustyn Waczynski, Edward Wassell, Yiting Wen, Allan K. Haas, John T. Montroy, Eric C. Piquette, Kadri Vural, Craig A. Cabelli, and Donald N. B. Hall "Selection of the infrared detectors for Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope", Proc. SPIE 5167, Focal Plane Arrays for Space Telescopes, (12 January 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.507334