Related papers: Characterization of a CCD array for Bragg spectros…
Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) have been successfully used in several high energy physics experiments over the past two decades. Their high spatial resolution and thin sensitive layers make them an excellent tool for studying short-lived…
Low noise CCDs fully-depleted up to 675 micrometers have been identified as a unique tool for Dark Matter searches and low energy neutrino physics. The charge collection efficiency (CCE) for these detectors is a critical parameter for the…
We report on the design and laboratory testing of a prototype imaging CZT detector intended for balloon flight testing in April 2000. The detector tests several key techniques needed for the construction of large-area CZT arrays, as…
We have obtained H$\alpha$ CCD images of 21 compact planetary nebulae in the galactic bulge. All objects are resolved and, after deconvolving the seeing disk, we find diameters of 1--2$''$ with typical uncertainties of 20\%. The values are…
Chandra High-Energy Transmission Grating (HETG) X-ray spectra are extracted from 17 bright, narrow regions of Cas A and provide unique measurements of their kinematic and plasma states. From the dominant emission lines, e.g. He-like Si, we…
(ABRIDGED) This dissertation concerns the use of CCDs for for X-ray astronomy. Part I of this thesis focuses on the calibration of the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS), one of the two primary focal plane instruments on the Chandra…
The Pixel Detector (PXD) of the Belle II experiment at superKEKB accelerator in Japan is based in the DEPFET technology. Two layers of 8+12 modules at a radius of 13 and 22 mm will give a spatial resolution below 10 mm. The radiation level…
Silicon pixel detectors produced according to the ATLAS Pixel Detector design were tested in a beam at CERN in the framework of the ATLAS collaboration. The detectors used n+/n sensors with oxygenated silicon substrates. The experimental…
We present a cryogenic wafer mapper based on light emitting diodes (LEDs) for spatial mapping of a large microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) array. In this scheme, an array of LEDs, addressed by DC wires and collimated through…
Charge-coupled devices (CCDs) are a leading technology in direct dark matter searches because of their eV-scale energy threshold and high spatial resolution. The sensitivity of future CCD experiments could be enhanced by distinguishing…
Context. Reliable metallicity values for M dwarfs are important for studies of the chemical evolution and advancement of planet formation theory in low-mass environments. Historically the determination of stellar parameters of low-mass…
Far-infrared detectors for future cooled space telescopes require ultra-sensitive detectors with optical noise equivalent powers of order 0.2 aW/\sqrt Hz. This performance has already been demonstrated in arrays of transition edge sensors.…
A full-wafer, 10,580 $\times$ 10,560 pixel (95 $\times$ 95 mm) CCD was designed and tested at Semiconductor Technology Associates (STA) with 9 um square pixels and 16 outputs. The chip was successfully fabricated in 2006 at DALSA and some…
Information on the lattice parameter of single crystals with known crystallographic structure allows for estimations of sample quality and composition. In many cases it is suffcient to determine one lattice parameter or the lattice spacing…
The imaging and spectral performance of CdTe double-sided strip detectors (CdTe-DSDs) was evaluated for the ASTRO-H mission. The charcterized CdTe-DSDs have a strip pitch of 0.25 mm, an imaging area of 3.2 cm$\times$3.2 cm and a thickness…
Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detectors are having a major impact on the field of hard X-ray astronomy. Without the need for cryogenic cooling they achieve good spatial and energy resolutions over the broad energy range from 10 keV to 600…
Chandra X-ray Observatory, (formerly known as AXAF), will observe down to the flux limit of 2\times 10^{-16} erg~s^{-1} cm^{-2}. In its first year of operation Chandra's CCD detectors will observe over 1500 quasars serendipitously in the…
We review the systematic uncertainties that have plagued attempts to obtain high precision and high accuracy from ground-based photometric measurements using CCDs. We identify two main challenges in breaking through the 1% precision…
Optical spectrometers, instruments that work with monochromatic light, are commonly rated by the spectral bandwidth, which defines the ability to resolve closely spaced spectral components. The ability to detect faint objects among these…
We characterize the astrometric distortion at the edges of thick, fully-depleted CCDs in the lab using a bench-top simulation of LSST observing. By illuminating an array of forty thousand pinholes (30mu m diameter) at the object plane of a…