In recent years the XEUS mission concept has evolved and has been the subject of several industrial studies. The mission concept has now matured to the point that it could be proposed for a Phase A study and subsequent flight programme. The key feature of XEUS will be its X-ray optic with collecting area ~30-100x that of XMM. The mission is envisaged at an orbit around the L2 point in space, and is formed from two spacecraft; one for the mirrors, and the other for the focal plane detectors. With a focal length of 50m, the plate scale of the optic is 6.5x that of XMM, which using existing focal plane technology will reduce the effective field of view to a few arc minutes. Cryogenic instrumentation, with detector sizes of a few mm can only be used for narrow field studies of target objects, and a wide field instrument is under consideration using a DEPFET pixel array to image out to a diameter of 5 arcminutes, requiring an array of dimension 70mm. It is envisaged to extend this field of view possibly out to 15 arcminutes through the use of an outer detection ring comprised of MOS CCDs
This paper describes the design and operation of a low noise analogue readout system for X-ray CCDs (at up-to 1MHz pixel rate) for e2v's CCDs. A major part of the system is Correlated Double Sampler (CDS) Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) designed in collaboration with the CCLRC. Here we discuss the ASIC specification, design and applications, together with the measured performance.
XEUS is the post-XMM next generation x-ray observatory which is currently under study by ESA. The mission aims to image the x-ray early universe through the study of feint, high red-shift objects. To provide sufficient photons to enable spectroscopy on these distant objects requires a telescope collecting area greatly in excess of those in use today, and an x-ray optic with collecting area ~100x of XMM is ultimately envisaged. With a focal length of 50m, the plate scale of the optic is 6.5x that of XMM, which using existing focal plane technology will reduce the effective field of view to a few arc minutes. Cryogenic instrumentation, with detector sizes of a few mm can only be used for narrow field studies of target objects, and a wide field instrument is under consideration using a DEPFET pixel array to image out to a diameter of 5 arcminutes, requiring an array of dimension 70mm. Since the useful field of view of the XEUS optic will extend to a diameter of 30 arcminutes, the potential of the optic could be very under-utilized. Here we propose an extension to the wide field imager, the E-WFI, comprised of a ring array of CCDs which will increase the coverage of the focal plane, and greatly increase the serendipitous science resulting from the mission. Here we describe the first design concept for the E-WFI, and discuss the technical advancements in MOS CCD technology which will enhance the science of the mission.
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