Measurement of a Flight-like TES Microcalorimeter Array for the NewAthena X-IFU Development Model
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Hull, S. V., J. S. Adams, C. V. Ambarish, et al. "Measurement of a Flight-like TES Microcalorimeter Array for the NewAthena X-IFU Development Mode". IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 2026, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/TASC.2026.3652454.
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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.
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Abstract
The X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) on the NewAthena X-ray Observatory will fly a 1,504 pixel transitionedge sensor (TES) microcalorimeter array to study the Hot and Energetic X-ray Universe. For the first time, we have developed and measured a flight-like X-IFU detector that matches the pixel design and array configuration of the planned flight model, including the now baselined 50μm × 30μm TES pixels as well as flight-like electrical and mechanical wafer interfaces. This detector has undergone detailed characterization at NASA/GSFC in preparation to serve as the Development Model (DM) array for the X-IFU instrument. We measured roughly 150 pixels distributed across the ∼1.5 cm diameter hexagonal detector array to verify target adherence and spatial uniformity of key TES pixel parameters and performance metrics, including transition temperature, transition shape, normal-state resistance, conductance to thermal bath, complex impedance, and spectral resolution. The average spectral resolution at 6.9 keV is 2.01 ± 0.31 eV, or 1.93 ± 0.11 eV when removing 16 pixels with degraded performance from fabrication defects. For a smaller subset of pixels we also verified the pixel crosstalk and gain sensitivities meet requirements.