Design and Testing of a Prototype Pixellated CZT Detector and Shield for Hard X-Ray Astronomy

We report on the design and laboratory testing of a prototype imaging CZT detector intended for balloon flight testing in April 2000. The detector tests several key techniques needed for the construction of large-area CZT arrays, as required for proposed hard X-ray astronomy missions. Two 10 mm × 10 mm × 5 mm CZT detectors, each with a 4 × 4 array of 1.9 mm pixels on a 2.5 mm pitch, will be mounted in a “flip-chip” fashion on a printed circuit board carrier card; the detectors will be placed 0.3 mm apart in a tiled configuration such that the pixel pitch is preserved across both crystals. One detector is eV Products high-pressure Bridgman CZT, and the other is IMARAD horizontal Bridgman material. Both detectors are read out by a 32-channel VA-TA ASIC controlled by a PC/104 single-board computer. A passive shield/collimator surrounded by plastic scintillator surrounds the detectors on five sides and provides a ∼ 45◦ field of view. The background spectrum recorded by this instrument will be compared to that measured by a single-element CZT detector (10 mm × 10 mm × 2 mm high-pressure Bridgman material from eV Products) fitted with the same passive/plastic collimator but including an active BGO shield to the rear. This detector has been previously flown by us completely shielded by a passive cover. We describe preliminary laboratory results for the various systems, discuss initial background simulations, and describe our plans for balloon flight tests.