Charge Injection Device Performance in Low-Earth Orbit

Charge Injection Devices (CIDs) have demonstrated direct contrast ratios in excess of 1:20 million from sub-optimal ground-based astronomical observations. CIDs are therefore interesting prospects for obtaining direct images from a host of high contrast ratio celestial scenes. However, while CIDs ar...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2020-05, Vol.132 (1011), p.55001
Main Authors: Batcheldor, D., Sawant, S., Jenne, J., Ninkov, Z., Durrance, S., Bhaskaran, S., Chapman, T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Appropriate technology
Earth orbits
Extrasolar planets
Injection
instrumentation: detectors
Multinational space ventures
Space stations
Space telescopes
Technology
Telescopes
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Charge Injection Devices (CIDs) have demonstrated direct contrast ratios in excess of 1:20 million from sub-optimal ground-based astronomical observations. CIDs are therefore interesting prospects for obtaining direct images from a host of high contrast ratio celestial scenes. However, while CIDs are capable of much deeper contrast ratios, potentially exceeding 1:1 billion, they do not address the Inner Working Angle (IWA) problem. If the Point-Spread Function (PSF) of a bright target is not well understood and accounted for, then the IWA will be large and nearby faint objects, like exoplanets, will be challenging to observe regardless of the detector used. As Earth's atmosphere is a major contributor to the variability of a PSF, high contrast ratio imaging with small IWAs will be best achieved in space. Therefore, if CIDs are to be used on future space-telescopes, they must be flight qualified in the space environment and shown to be at the appropriate Technology Readiness Level (TRL). Here we report the results of an 8 months CID technology demonstration mission that used the Nano-Racks External Platform mounted to the Kibo Exposed Facility on-board the International Space Station. Over the course of the 236 days mission we find no significant on-orbit changes of CID performance in terms of dark current, linearity, read noise, and photon transfer efficiency. As a result, CIDs are now space-qualified to TRL-8 and can be considered for future space telescopes.
ISSN:0004-6280
1538-3873
DOI:10.1088/1538-3873/ab7a74