Electron and Proton Beam Testing of Pixelated Solid State Detectors (Postprint)

Abstract

The importance of using beam testing to measure the angular response of particle instruments is illustrated through the development cycle of the Fixed Sensor Head (FSH) instrument that will be flown on the US Air Force s Demonstration and Science eXperiment (DSX) mission. During its construction, the FSH was tested using particle beams many times and each test yielded an important result that contributed to the design of the instrument before being delivered in Aug. 2010. After several lower energy (<30 keV) beam calibration tests at Hanscom Air Force Base demonstrated that the FSH was performing very well, a final, higher energy (150 keV < E < 1 MeV) beam test at the Goddard Space Flight Center was almost skipped due to budget and scheduling constraints. This final test illuminated a major problem with the biasing of a detector guard ring that would have been difficult if not impossible to track down on orbit. The problem was easily fixed, but serves to highlight the necessity of testing instruments across the entire range of possible stimuli that they may encounter.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 26, 2013
Accession Number
ADA590857

Entities

People

  • Charles W. Parker
  • D. L. Voss
  • T. A. Fritz

Organizations

  • Boston University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Facilities
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Calibration
  • Charged Particles
  • Detectors
  • Electron Beams
  • Electrons
  • Engineering
  • Flight
  • Governments
  • Guard Rings
  • Particle Beams
  • Particles
  • Proton Beams
  • Protons
  • Space Flight

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerospace Test and Evaluation
  • Plasma Physics.
  • Regression Analysis.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Microelectromechanical Systems
  • Space
  • Space - Satellites