Demonstration of Athena X-IFU Compatible 40-Row Time-Division-Multiplexed Readout

Date

2019-03-19

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

M. Durkin et al., "Demonstration of Athena X-IFU Compatible 40-Row Time-Division-Multiplexed Readout," in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 1-5, Aug. 2019, Art no. 2101005, doi: 10.1109/TASC.2019.2904472.

Rights

This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Public Domain Mark 1.0

Subjects

Abstract

Time-division multiplexing (TDM) is the backup readout technology for the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU), a 3168-pixel X-ray transition-edge sensor (TES) array that will provide imaging spectroscopy for european space agency’s Athena satellite mission. X-IFU design studies are considering readout with a multiplexing factor of up to 40. We present data showing 40-row TDM readout (32 TES rows + 8 repeats of the last row) of TESs that are of the same type as those being planned for X-IFU, using measurement and analysis parameters within the ranges specified for X-IFU. Single-column TDM measurements have best-fit energy resolution of (1.91 ± 0.01) eV for the Al Kα complex (1.5 keV), (2.10 ± 0.02) eV for Ti Kα (4.5 keV), (2.23 ± 0.02) eV for Mn Kα (5.9 keV), (2.40 ± 0.02) eV for Co Kα (6.9 keV), and (3.44 ± 0.04) eV for Br Kα (11.9 keV). Three-column measurements have best-fit resolution of (2.03 ± 0.01) eV for Ti Kα and (2.40 ± 0.01) eV for Co Kα. The degradation due to the multiplexed readout ranges from 0.1 eV at the lower end of the energy range to 0.5 eV at the higher end. The demonstrated performance meets X-IFU’s energy-resolution and energy-range requirements. True 40-row TDM readout, without repeated rows, of kilopixel scale arrays of X-IFU-like TESs is now under development.