Front- and back-illuminated X-ray CCD performance in lowand high-earth orbit: Performance trends of Suzaku XIS and Chandra ACIS detectors

• Main Authors: La Marr, Beverly J. (Contributor), Kissel, Steve E. (Contributor), Prigozhin, Gregory (Contributor), Tsuru, Takeshi Go (Author), Tsunemi, Hiroshi (Author), Dotani, Tadayasu (Author), Hayashida, Kiyoshi (Author), Matsumoto, Hironori (Author), Grant, Catherine E (Author), Bautz, Marshall W. (Author)
• Other Authors: MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (Contributor), La Marr, Beverly (Contributor), Grant, Catherine E. (Contributor), Bautz, Mark W. (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, 2010-03-16T20:35:17Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Since the launch of the Suzaku X-ray astronomy satellite into low- earth orbit in July, 2005, the performance of the CCD detectors in the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS) detectors have slowly degraded, as expected, due to accumulating radiation damage. We compare the evolution of front- and back-illuminated XIS CCDs with one another and with that of very similar detectors installed in the ACIS instrument aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which is in a much higher orbit than Suzaku. We attempt to identify effects of the differing radiation environments as well as those arising from structural differences between the two types of detector.