Future strategic X-ray missions, such as the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS) and those targeted by the Great Observatories Maturation Program (GOMaP), require fast, low-noise X-ray imaging spectrometers. To achieve the speed and noise capabilities required by such programs, the X-ray Astronomy and Observational Cosmology (XOC) Group at Stanford, in collaboration with the MIT Kavli Institute (MKI) and MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MIT-LL), is developing readout systems that leverage the high speed, low noise, and low power consumption of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) devices. Here, we report the energy resolution and noise performance achieved using MIT-LL AXIS prototype charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors in conjunction with Stanford-developed Multi-Channel Readout Chip (MCRC) ASICs. Additionally, we present a new sampling method for simultaneous optimization of the output gate (OG), reset gate (RG), and reset drain (RD) biases which, in combination with new integrated fast summing well (SW) and RG clock operation modes, enables the data rates required of future X-ray telescopes.
@article{arxiv.2508.14174,
title = {Fast, low noise CCD systems for future strategic x-ray missions},
author = {Haley R. Stueber and Abigail Y. Pan and Tanmoy Chattopadhyay and Steven W. Allen and Marshall W. Bautz and Kevan Donlon and Catherine E. Grant and Sven Herrmann and Beverly J. LaMarr and Andrew Malonis and Eric D. Miller and R. Glenn Morris and Peter Orel and Artem Poliszczuk and Gregory Y. Prigozhin and Daniel R. Wilkins},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.14174},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
To appear in SPIE Optics and Photonics 2025 proceedings. 16 pages, 12 figures