Instruments of RT-2 experiment onboard CORONAS-PHOTON and their test and evaluation I: ground calibration of RT-2/S and RT-2/G

Abstract

Phoswich detectors (RT-2/S & RT-2/G) are major scientific payloads of the RT-2 Experiment onboard the CORONAS-PHOTON mission, which was launched into a polar Low Earth Orbit of around 550 km on 2009 January 30. These RT-2 instruments are designed and developed to observe solar flares in hard X-rays and to understand the energy transport processes associated with these flares. Apart from this, these instruments are capable of observing Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) and Cosmic diffuse X-ray background (CDXRB). Both detectors consist of identical NaI(Tl) and CsI(Na) scintillation crystals in a Phoswich combination, having the same diameter (116 mm) but different thicknesses. The normal working energy range is from 15 keV to 150 keV, but may be extendable up to ∼ 1 MeV. In this paper, we present the RT-2/S and RT-2/G instruments and discuss their testing and calibration results. We used different radio-active sources to calibrate both detectors. The radio-active source

Development of instruments for space exploration using meteorological balloons

“…23. These gain factors and resolutions achieved in our design is comparable to other similar detectors used for satellite borne space experiments like RT-2 19 and BeppoSAX. 20 The gain stability of the detector for long duration operation was also tested under normal laboratory conditions and it was found to be satisfactory.…”

DETECTION OF GRB 090618 WITH THERT-2 EXPERIMENT ON BOARD THECORONAS-PHOTONSATELLITE

“…To maximize the Sun observation time, the satellite was put into a low earth (500 km) Sun-synchronous near-polar (inclination 82.5 • ) orbit. The test and evaluation results of this payload are described in Debnath et al (2010), Kotoch et al (2010), Nandi et al (2010), Sarkar et al (2010) and Sreekumar et al (2010). Some details of the experiment can also be found at http://csp.res.in/rt2-main.html.…”

“…RT -2/S and RT -2/G detectors are essentially collimated Phoswich detectors user for solar flare studies (Debnath et al 2010). The shielding used for these detectors, however, are optimized to use them for hard X-ray spectroscopic studies of solar flares in 15 -100 keV region and as omni-directional hard X-ray/gammaray detectors between ∼ 50 keV to 1000 keV (Sarkar et al 2010).…”

The Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager on AstroSat

“…The veto detector is a 20 mm thick CsI (Tl) scintillator, of size 167 mm × 167 mm, viewed by two one inch Photo-multiplier tubes (PMT) positioned at two sides of the crystal. These detectors are procured from Scionix Holland, the same suppliers who have provided the RT-2 phoswich detectors (Debnath et al 2010).…”