The inclusion of a gas scintillation proportional counter (GSPC) within the EXOSAT payload complement significantly improves the spectroscopic capability of the mission. This broad-band medium energy spectrometer used in conjunction with the large area proportioni counter array (ME) should provide additional spectroscopic details on strong X-ray sources at photon energies above ~ 2 keV. The novel type of detector has an energy resolution at least a factor of two better than the ME experiment over a similar bandwidth (2 – 40 keV).

The gas scintillation proportional counter on Exosat

Energy resolution measurements are presented for a driftless xenon-filled parallel plane gas scintillation proportional counter in the X-ray energy range 0.1–25 keV. Due to the high electric field near the entrance window of the detector, the degrading influence of primary electron loss to this window on the energy resolution, particularly below ∼ 2 keV, has been made negligible. This has resulted in an excellent soft X-ray energy response, e.g. an energy resolution of 31% full width at half maximum (FWHM) has been measured for C K X-rays (0.28 keV). Further, the background rejection capability of a gas scintillation proportional counter has been significantly increased by using the driftless concept. The large difference in pulse shape between X-ray events and extended tracks of ionization enables the use of a very efficient background rejection technique. High rejection efficiencies have been achieved, e.g. 99.3% in the energy range 0.4–15 keV for an X-ray acceptance of 85% at 5.9 keV.

Soft X-ray energy resolution and background rejection in a driftless gas scintillation proportional counter

The characteristics of a one-atmosphere xenon gas proportional scintillation counter (GPSC) instrumented with a novel photosensor are reported. A microstrip gas chamber (MSGC) with a CsI photocathode deposited directly onto its electrode surface is used in place of the standard photomultiplier tube assembly to record the scintillation light from xenon. The microstrip electrodes also function as the GPSC second scintillation grid. The combination results in a simple and compact device that demonstrates the linear response characteristics of the scintillation process in xenon.

A microstrip gas chamber as a VUV photosensor for a xenon gas proportional scintillation counter

Refractory metal Nb/Al/Al-oxide/Al/Nb junctions are shown to be sensitive to 6-keV X-rays over the temperature range from 2.8 to 1.4 K. For such junctions, which have an observed minimum ionizing energy of 12 MeV, a limiting energy resolution of 8 eV is predicted. Currently an energy resolution of 250 eV is observed at 1.4 K which is primarily dominated by system electronic noise. The Nb-based junctions are shown to be very stable with respect to thermal cycling while the nonequilibrium physics can be simply scaled from the theory of Sn junctions. It is concluded that on-chip arrays having a broad band pass and good energy resolution should be feasible to construct. >

The detection of 6 keV X-rays with Nb junctions

The in-orbit performance of the EXOSAT gas scintillation proportional counter spectrometer is presented. The background rejection capability in the EXOSAT deep orbit is examined as well as the overall detectors response. Typical examples of the spectra from cosmic X-ray sources show that this new type of detector will make a significant advance to the field of medium energy broad band X-ray spectroscopy.

The in-Orbit Performance of the Exosat Gas Scintillation Proportional Counter

Performance characteristics of a gas scintillation spectrometer for X-ray astronomy

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Performance characteristics of a gas scintillation spectrometer for X-ray astronomy