One of the four instruments on the Chinese-European enhanced x-ray timing polarimetry (eXTP) mission is the wide field monitor (WFM), consisting of six coded aperture cameras. The detector plane of each camera is comprised of four 7x7 cm2 silicon drift detectors assembled with similarly sized hybrid circuit board that contain the front-end electronics (FEE) to read out the detectors. The whole assembly needs to be positioned and kept stable within ~50 micron to guarantee the scientific performance of the WFM. The FEE will have analogue ASICs to perform the read-out process. These bare dies are connected to the detector anode output pads. The detector cathodes need to be provided with voltages down to−1300V. Electrical connections between detector, ASICs and FEE are made by bond wires. The hybrid circuit board is a thick film circuit based on 96% Al2O3 which has a coefficient of thermal expansion that is sufficiently close to that of the silicon detector to avoid misalignment due to the large variations in temperature (−50/+60 °C) during assembly and flight. All materials, components and manufacturing processes will have to be without technology originating from the USA. For eXTP’s phase B, we are developing a demonstration model. For this, an early generation ASIC (‘IDeF-X HDBD’) is employed as well as some components that are US-made but for which there is path to European alternatives. The FEE manufacture and the assembly is already completely non-US. We outline the detector/electronics assembly and discuss the main challenges involved.
The Large Area Detector (LAD) is the high-throughput, spectral-timing instrument onboard the eXTP mission, a flagship mission of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China National Space Administration, with a large European participation coordinated by Italy and Spain. The eXTP mission is currently performing its phase B study, with a target launch at the end-2027. The eXTP scientific payload includes four instruments (SFA, PFA, LAD and WFM) offering unprecedented simultaneous wide-band X-ray timing and polarimetry sensitivity. The LAD instrument is based on the design originally proposed for the LOFT mission. It envisages a deployed 3.2 m2 effective area in the 2-30 keV energy range, achieved through the technology of the large-area Silicon Drift Detectors - offering a spectral resolution of up to 200 eV FWHM at 6 keV - and of capillary plate collimators - limiting the field of view to about 1 degree. In this paper we will provide an overview of the LAD instrument design, its current status of development and anticipated performance.
The enhanced x-ray timing and polarimetry (eXTP) mission is a large innovative observatory in the field of x-ray astronomy, designed to study the properties of matter under extreme conditions of density, gravity, and magnetic fields. It is developed by an international consortium led by the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and is currently completing phase-B with a launch foreseen in 2027. Two of the four instruments onboard eXTP will be provided by a European consortium: the large area detector (LAD) and the wide field monitor (WFM). These two instruments use a high number of large area silicon drift detectors (SDDs) that are organized in 40 modules of 16 detectors each for the LAD and in six coded-aperture cameras with four detectors each for the WFM. The high multiplicity and modularity of this concept as well as the high data rates call for a novel, hierarchical data processing scheme. A similar concept is applied in the data acquisition and processing system of the LAD and the WFM. silicon drift detector and front end electronics using ASIC technology constitute the detector assembly. Data processing is performed in an FPGA-based digital circuit using only ITAR-free components in order to facilitate export to the launch site in China. The design of the digital electronics is not yet finally frozen, but the development and manufacturing of demonstrator models have been already completed. The FPGA firmware based on the pipeline data processing concept has been developed in VHDL. This concept allows real-time data processing capabilities and reduces dead time, thus improving the detection capacity for high flux sources.
D2R1 (Dimension 2 revision 1) is the most recent development of CdTe based X-ray detectors within a series of highly successful imaging spectrometers CALISTE. The detector consists of a CdTe crystal which is directly connected to a low-noise readout ASIC by a flip-chip bonding process. The reduced stray capacitance in combination with an adapted ASIC design results in a superior energy resolution of 584 eV FWHM at 60 keV.
The 16x16 pixel array with a 300um pixel pitch constitutes a 4.8x4.8 mm^2 detector surface on a 750um thick crystal. Such fine-pitched hard X-ray detectors show not only an improved spatial resolution but also an improved spectral resolution at soft and medium energies. A slightly diminishing spectral resolution is only observed for energies that are large enough to increase the split ratio significantly.
X-ray polarimetry based on incoherent scattering also benefits from the improved spectral and spatial resolution. Furthermore, the sensitivity for polarimetric measurements that uses only a single detector unit is greatly enhanced because of an increased efficiency for detecting Compton scattered events: within smaller pixel structures, the position of the incoherent scattering and the position of the scattered photon absorption are less likely within the same pixel and can be therefore detected individually.
After a description of the new ASIC concept we are presenting laboratory measurements that were realized with several different detector modules in order to verify their spectral and spatial properties.
The home made ASIC of D2R1 is based on a Charge Sensitive Amplifier (CSA) in combination with a Multi Correlated Double Sampling method: the continuous sampled outputs of the CSA are averaged on -chip before and after an event detection. The difference of these two values represent the signal height of the detected event.
The ASIC exhibit very good performance and the Equivalent Noise Charge is as low as 29 electors rms, making them perfectly suitable to read semiconductor detectors of any kind and any bias polarity.
In order to investigate the spectral and spatial properties the focus of the data analysis is put on the event split ratio and its dependence with energy. The determination of the virtual pixel size for single events, i.e. the region within a pixel that results in a single event detection, is key for a proper understanding of the evolution of the spectral and spatial resolution with energy. While split events decrease the spectral performance because of added noise contributions of multiple readout channels, they increase the spatial resolution by allowing a center-of-mass calculation with a sub-pixel resolution. The virtual pixel size for single, double, triple, and quadruple events are estimated with an analytical model which is verified by measurements at different energies (5.6 keV, 13.9 keV, 60 keV, 122 keV and 245 keV). Finally, the polarimetric performance of D2R1 is examined via detailed simulations.
The wide accessible energy range between 2-250 keV and the fast timing capabilities complete D2R1 to suite a variety of different applications. Excellent spatial, spectral, and timing capabilities in the medium and hard X-ray range are key parameters for future X-ray missions. All these properties are well combined within the D2R1 concept.
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