No Arabic abstract
Soon after launch, the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS), one of the focal plane instruments on the Chandra X-ray Observatory, suffered radiation damage from exposure to soft protons during passages through the Earths radiation belts. The primary effect of the damage was to increase the charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) of the eight front illuminated CCDs by more than two orders of magnitude. The ACIS instrument team is continuing to study the properties of the damage with an emphasis on developing techniques to mitigate CTI and spectral resolution degradation. We present the initial temperature dependence of ACIS CTI from -120 to -60 degrees Celsius and the current temperature dependence after more than six years of continuing slow radiation damage. We use the change of shape of the temperature dependence to speculate on the nature of the damaging particles.
Soon after launch, the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS), one of the focal plane instruments on the Chandra X-ray Observatory, suffered radiation damage from exposure to soft protons during passages through the Earths radiation belts. Current operations require ACIS to be protected during radiation belt passages to prevent this type of damage, but there remains a much slower and more gradual increase. We present the history of ACIS charge transfer inefficiency (CTI), and other measures of radiation damage, from January 2000 through June 2005. The rate of CTI increase is low, of order 1e-6 per year, with no indication of step-function increases due to specific solar events. Based on the time history and CCD location of the CTI increase, we speculate on the nature of the damaging particles.
We present a study of charge transfer in Na-intercalated FeOCl and polyaniline-intercalated FeOCl using high-resolution x-ray absorption spectroscopy and resonant x-ray emission spectroscopy at the Fe-K edge. By comparing the experimental data with ab-initio simulations, we are able to unambiguously distinguish the spectral changes which appear due to intercalation into those of electronic origin and those of structural origin. For both systems, we find that about 25% of the Fe sites are reduced to Fe2+ via charge transfer between FeOCl and the intercalate. This is about twice as large as the Fe2+ fraction reported in studies using Mossbauer spectroscopy. This discrepancy is ascribed to the fact that the charge transfer occurs on the same time scale as the Mossbauer effect itself. Our result suggests that every intercalated atom or molecule is involved in the charge-transfer process, thus making this process a prerequisite for intercalation. The Fe2+ fraction is found to increase with pressure for polyaniline-FeOCl, hinting at an enhancement of the conductivity in the FeOCl intercalation compounds under pressure.
We present experimental studies on the charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) of charge-coupled device (CCD) developed for the soft X-ray imaging telescope, Xtend, aboard the XRISM satellite. The CCD is equipped with a charge injection (CI) capability, in which sacrificial charge is periodically injected to fill the charge traps. By evaluating the re-emission of the trapped charge observed behind the CI rows, we find that there are at least three trap populations with different time constants. The traps with the shortest time constant, which is equivalent to a transfer time of approximately one pixel, are mainly responsible for the trailing charge of an X-ray event seen in the following pixel. A comparison of the trailing charge in two clocking modes reveals that the CTI depends not only on the transfer time but also on the area, namely the imaging or storage area. We construct a new CTI model with taking into account with both transfer-time and area dependence. This model reproduces the data obtained in both clocking modes consistently. We also examine apparent flux dependence of the CTI observed without the CI technique. The higher incident X-ray flux is, the lower the CTI value becomes. It is due to a sacrificial charge effect by another X-ray photon. This effect is found to be negligible when the CI technique is used.
We have investigated the radiation damage effects on a CCD to be employed in the Japanese X-ray astronomy mission including the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) onboard the International Space Station (ISS). Since low energy protons release their energy mainly at the charge transfer channel, resulting a decrease of the charge transfer efficiency, we thus focused on the low energy protons in our experiments. A 171 keV to 3.91 MeV proton beam was irradiated to a given device. We measured the degradation of the charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) as a function of incremental fluence. A 292 keV proton beam degraded the CTI most seriously. Taking into account the proton energy dependence of the CTI, we confirmed that the transfer channel has the lowest radiation tolerance. We have also developed the different device architectures to reduce the radiation damage in orbit. Among them, the ``notch CCD, in which the buried channel implant concentration is increased, resulting in a deeper potential well than outside, has three times higher radiation tolerance than that of the normal CCD. We then estimated the charge transfer inefficiency of the CCD in the orbit of ISS, considering the proton energy spectrum. The CTI value is estimated to be 1.1e-5 per each transfer after two years of mission life in the worse case analysis if the highest radiation-tolerant device is employed. This value is well within the acceptable limit and we have confirmed the high radiation-tolerance of CCDs for the MAXI mission.
After launch, the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS), a focal plane instrument on the Chandra X-ray Observatory, suffered radiation damage from exposure to soft protons during passages through the Earths radiation belts. An effect of the damage was to increase the charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) of the front illuminated CCDs. As part of the initial damage assessment, the focal plane was warmed from the operating temperature of -100C to +30C which unexpectedly further increased the CTI. We report results of ACIS CCD irradiation experiments in the lab aimed at better understanding this reverse annealing process. Six CCDs were irradiated cold by protons ranging in energy from 100 keV to 400 keV, and then subjected to simulated bakeouts in one of three annealing cycles. We present results of these lab experiments, compare them to our previous experiences on the ground and in flight, and derive limits on the annealing time constants.