The pn-CCD camera is developed as one ofthe focal plane instruments for the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) on board the X-ray Multi Mirror (XMM) mission to be launched in 1999. The detector consists of four quadrants of three pnCCDs each, which are integrated on one silicon wafer. Each CCD has 200 x 64 pixels (150 im x 150 tim) with 280 im depletion depth. One CCD of a quadrant is read out at a time, while the four quadrants can be processed independently of each other. In standard imaging mode the CCDs are read out sequentially every 70 ms. Observations of point sources brighter than 1 mCrab will be effected by photon pile-up. However, special operating modes can be used to observe bright sources up to 1 50 mCrab in Timing Mode with 30 ts time resolution and very bright sources up to several Crab in Burst Mode with 7 is time resolution. We have tested one quadrant of the EPIC pn-CCD camera at line energies from 0.52 keV to 17.4 keV at the long beam test facility Panter in the focus of the qualification mirror module for XMM. In order to test the time resolution of the system, a mechanical chopper was used to periodically modulate the beam intensity. Pulse periods down to 0.7 ms were generated. This paper describes the performance of the pn-CCD detector in Timing and Burst readout modes with special emphasis on energy and time resolution.
The pn-Charge Coupled Device (pn-CCD) camera was developed as one of the focal plane instruments for the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) on board the X-ray Multi Mirror (XMM) mission. The homogeneously sensitive detector consists of four quadrants of three pn-CCDs each, which are integrated on a single silicon wafer.Each CCD has an area of 10 mm x 30 mm devided into 64 x 200 pixels with a depletion depth of 280 m. Alitogether the sensitive area is 60 mm x 60 mm. In the standard imaging mode (full frame mode) the CCDs are read out sequentially every 70 ms. In addition, different window modes allow imaging of brighter sources by restricting the detector area and reducing the integration time down to 6 ms We have tested one quadrant of the EPIC pn-CCD camera at line energies from 0.52 keV to 17.4 keV at the long beam test facility PANTER in focus of the qualification mirror module for XMM as well as in a homogeneous X-ray beam. In this paper we describe the tests in the different imaging modes and report on the performance.
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