A new spectroscopic imager for x-rays from 0.5 keV to 150 keV combining a fully depleted pnCCD coupled to a columnar CsI(Tl) scintillator with fano limited energy resolution and deep subpixel spatial resolution

Detectors with high energy and position resolution over a wide energy range are required for space telescopes in high energy astrophysics missions. By combining a low noise fully depleted pnCCD detector with a columnar CsI(Tl) scintillator, an energy dispersive spatially resolving detector can be realized with high quantum efficiency in the range from below 0.5 keV to above 150 keV. The detector is exposed to the photon source such that the X-rays first traverse the 450 μm sensitive pnCCD. If they are stopped through the photoelectric effect in the silicon detector, Fano-noiselimited energy resolution is achieved. This is true for X-rays from a few hundred eV up to approximately 15 keV. Above this energy the probability that the photon penetrates the pnCCD and converts in the CsI(Tl) scintillator is becoming higher. Due to the high atomic number of Cs (Z=55) and I (Z=53) hard X-rays are stopped efficiently in a 0.7 mm thick CsI(Tl) scintillator for photon energies up to 150 keV. The light from the scintillator is recorded with the same backilluminated pnCCD. For X-rays from a 57Co source with an energy of 122 keV and 136 keV we achieve an energy resolution of 0.7% (FWHM=850 eV) for the direct conversion in the silicon while the energy resolution for the conversion in the CsI(Tl) is 10% (12 keV). We have performed a knife-edge experiment at 122 keV and achieved a position precision of 27 μm at that energy. Monte Carlo simulations were showing similar, fully compatible results. In case the X-rays are converted directly in the silicon the position precision is better than 10 μm. This is close to the theoretical limit of the spatial resolution in such a system, which is given by the length of the tracks of the secondary electrons in the ionizing process in silicon and CsI. Spectra, images and the results of the GEANT4 simulations will be shown.