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Crews, Chiaki; Buggey, Thomas W.; Jones, Lawrence S.; Endicott, James and Holland, Andrew D.
(2024).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3017845
Abstract
The Auroral x-ray Imaging Spectrometer (AXIS) instrument proposed by the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Space Astronomy Group plans to gather spectral information of the Earth’s aurorae in the 0.3 to 3keV band from a low Earth polar orbit for the first time. A trade-off study comparing possible Teledyne e2v (Te2v) detectors to meet preliminary instrument requirements previously concluded that the backside-illuminated (BI) CIS221-X, a prototype CMOS image sensor (CIS) optimised for soft x-ray detection, was a viable option. This paper introduces the current preliminary instrument requirements for AXIS and the compact Nuscis camera electronics from XCAM Ltd that will be used with the CIS221-X to produce an engineering model of the instrument. Continued studies on the CIS221-X for AXIS will include the optimisation of operating conditions in particular for the less well-studied pixel variants of the detector, and calibration with soft x-rays.