Wideband observation of the Crab pulsar using a superconducting transition-edge sensor

Abstract

Our detectors are superconducting transition edge sensors (TESs) optimized for the wide band detection of individual photons from the mid infrared, through the optical, and into the near ultraviolet. We typically achieve an energy resolution of 0.15 eV FWHM over this range with timing resolution of 100 ns. We have measured photon events with sub- microsecond rise times and 3 microsecond fall times allowing count rates as high as 30 kHz without significant degradation in energy resolution. Such characteristics along with the predicted high quantum efficiency (10% in IR to 50% in optical-UV) make our TES detectors very appealing for low-flux applications which have energy and timing requirements, such as fast spectrophotometry for observational astronomy. We present results from our recent observation of the Crab Pulsar (PSR BO531 + 21) which demonstrate the ability of our sensors to extract wide band phase-resolved spectroscopic information of the pulsar using the student-class 24 inch telescope on the campus of Stanford University. We present a description of the optical system and an analysis of the single pixel energy response.© (1999) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.