An X-ray imager based on silicon microstrip detector and coded mask

Abstract

SuperAGILE is the X-ray monitor of AGILE, a satellite mission for gamma-ray astronomy, and it is the first X-ray imaging instrument based on the technology of the silicon microstrip detectors combined with a coded aperture imaging technique. The SuperAGILE detection plane is composed of four 1-D silicon microstrip detector modules, mechanically coupled to tungsten coded mask units. The detector strips are separately and individually connected to the input analogue channels of the front-end electronics, composed of low-noise and low-power consumption VLSI ASIC chips. SuperAGILE can produce 1-D images with 6 arcmin angular resolution and ∼2–3 arcmin localisation capability, for intense sources, in a field of view composed of two orthogonal areas of 107°×68°. The time resolution is 2 μs, the overall dead time is ∼5 μs and the electronic noise is ∼7.5 keV full-width at half-maximum. The resulting instrument is very compact (40×40×14 cm 3), light (10 kg) and has low power consumption (12 W). AGILE is a mission of the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana and its launch is planned in 2007 in a low equatorial Earth orbit. In this contribution we present SuperAGILE and discuss its performance and scientific objectives.