Atmosphere-Ionosphere Mission - Swedish Institute of Space ...

TECHNOLOGY 16
FIGURE 8: The DIXI system Angie chip developed at Department of Radiation
Research at Uppsala University.
will provide sensors for extremely high frequencies/energies and expertise in the
detection of high-energy photons and particles.
The Digital X-ray Imaging project (DIXI) at the ISV has developed a readout
circuit with 31 ×32 pixels each consisting of a pre-amplifier, shaper, discriminator
and two counters [24]. The chip itself can be viewed in Figure 8 and the detector
board, with the Angie chip mounted, can be viewed in Figure 9. The circuit is
designed for subtractive imaging with single photon counting capabilities. The
radiation hardened electronics, which is being used in particle accelerator experiments,
is implemented as a integrated circuit so the instrument will be compact
and light-weight. The sensitivity to photons can be tuned by selecting an appropriate
sensor element, typically a flip-chip bonded to the circuit, and by setting
the discrimination threshold in the discriminator. In the DIXI project the energy
range 5–100 keV is covered. The technology is also easily applicable to charged
particles. One of the satellites of the proposed set of two, will be equipped with
this sensor while the other craft will have a gamma detector, also provided by ISV.
Innovative digital electromagnetic field vector receptors (‘three-dimensional
radio antenna and receiver systems’) have been developed in a collaboration between
the IRF group (led by Bo Thidé), the group at Signal and Systems (led by professor
Anders Rydberg) in Uppsala, and the group at Växjö University (led by professor
Sven Nordebo). This combination of expertise and competence will ensure highquality
science and technology.
Atmosphere-Ionosphere Mission
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