NASA NTRS · 20200002180
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Guarneros-Luna, Ali, Murbach, Marcus S.. 2018-06-02. Robotix Fair 2018. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200002180
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Micro-X is a sounding rocket-borne instrument that uses a microcalorimeter array to perform high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy. This instrument flew for the first time on July 22nd, 2018, from the White Sands Missile Range, USA. This flight marks the first successful operation of a transition-edge sensor array and its time-division multiplexing readout system in space. This launch was dedicated to the observation of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. A failure in the attitude control system prevented the rocket from pointing and led to no time on target. The onboard calibration source provided X-rays in flight, and it is used to compare detector performance during preflight integration, flight, and after the successful post-flight recovery. This calibration data demonstrate the capabilities of the detector in a space environment as well as its potential for future flight.
Exploring the effects of size and geometry of normal metal features on the transition shapes and performance of transition-edge sensor microcalorimeters. The spectral resolution of transition-edge sensor (TES) microcalorimeters is very sensitive to the specific dependencies of the resistance R in the superconducting transition on the current I, magnetic field B, and temperature T. In particular, it has been shown that transitions that are very steep in (R,T) space lead to a significant noise term, in excess of conventional expectations. This so-called unexplained noise is known to be reduced by the addition of normal metal stripes across the TES perpendicular to the direction of current flow. These normal metal stripes have been shown to drastically alter the oscillatory patterns seen in measurements of the critical current as a function of magnetic field. However, there are many remaining questions about the exact impact of the stripes on current distributions within the TES, the Fraunhofer pattern and, therefore, the shape of the R(I, B, T) surface. Through measurements of the resistance under DC bias of TES devices of various sizes, with different stripe patterns and dimensions, we will discuss how these stripes can affect the R(I, B, T) surface. In addition, using measurements and analysis of the noise spectra of various devices we will present how these changes to the stripe pattern may affect the performance of the TES. In particular, we will discuss strategies to reduce the presence of localized discontinuities in the derivative of R, associated with increased noise, while maintaining the globally low levels of unexplained noise currently achieved with conventional metal stripe patterns. Implementing these strategies is a path towards producing large arrays with highly uniform transitions and high spectral resolution. These large uniform arrays will be required for future x-ray astronomy applications, such as the X-IFU on ATHENA.
TES is an infrared Fourier transform spectrometer on board the EOS-Aura spacecraft launched July 15, 2004. Improvements to the radiometric calibration and consequent assessment of radiometric accuracy have been on-going since launch.