The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will answer fundamental questions about the evolution of dark energy over time and expand the catalog of known exoplanets into new regions of parameter space. Using a Hubble-sized mirror and 18 newly developed HgCdTe 4K x 4K photodiode arrays (H4RG-10), WFIRST will measure the positions and shapes of hundreds of millions of galaxies, the light curves of thousands of supernovae, and the microlensing signals of over a thousand exoplanets toward the bulge of the Galaxy. These measurements require unprecedented sensitivity and characterization of the Wide Field Instrument (WFI), particularly its detectors. The WFIRST project undertook an extensive detector development program to create focal plane arrays that meet these science requirements. These prototype detectors have been characterized and their performance demonstrated in a relevant space-like environment (thermal vacuum, vibration, acoustic, and radiation testing), advancing the H4RG-10's technology readiness level (TRL) to TRL-6. We present the performance characteristics of these TRL-6 demonstration devices.
@article{arxiv.2005.00505,
title = {Properties and characteristics of the WFIRST H4RG-10 detectors},
author = {Gregory Mosby, and Bernard J. Rauscher and Chris Bennett and Edward . S. Cheng and Stephanie Cheung and Analia Cillis and David Content and Dave Cottingham and Roger Foltz and John Gygax and Robert J. Hill and Jeffrey W. Kruk and Jon Mah and Lane Meier and Chris Merchant and Laddawan Miko and Eric C. Piquette and Augustyn Waczynski and Yiting Wen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.00505},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
47 pages, 19 figures manuscript submitted to JATIS