Position-sensitive detector for the 6-m optical telescope

Abstract

Abstract. The Position-Sensitive Detector (PSD) for photometrical and spectral observation on the 6-meter optical telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory (Russia) is described. The PSD consists of a positionsensitive tube, amplifiers of output signals, analog-to-digital converters (ADC) and a digital logic plate, which produces a signal for ADC start and an external strob pulse for reading information by registration system. If necessary, the thermoelectric cooler can be used. The position-sensitive tube has the following main elements: a photocathode, electrodes of inverting optics, a block of microchannel plates (MCP) and a position-sensitive collector of quadrant type. The main parameters of the PSD are the diameter of the sensitive surface is 25 mm, the spatial resolution is better than 100 µm in the centre and a little worse on the periphery; the dead time is near 0.5 µs; the detection quantum efficiency is defined by the photocathode and it is not less than 0.1, as a rule; dark current is about hundreds of cps, or less, when cooling. PSD spectral sensitivity depends on the type of photocathode and input window material. We use a multialkali photocathode and a fiber or UV-glass, which gives the short-wave cut of 360 nm or 250 nm, respectively.

Short time scale pulse stability of the Crab pulsar in the optical band

“…The details of observations are summarized in Table 1. The equipment used were four-color standard photometer with diaphragms based on photomultipliers, fast photometer with avalanche photo-diodes (Shearer et al 2003) and panoramic spectro-polarimeter based on position-sensitive detector (Debur et al 2003;Plokhotnichenko et al 2003). All devices provide the 1µs time resolution.…”

Discovery of the Sub-second Linearly Polarized Spikes of Synchrotron Origin in the UV Ceti Giant Optical Flare

“…Systematic monitoring of flaring stars with 1-μs temporal resolution with the Russian 6-m telescope is ongoing since 2008, using the panoramic photospectropolarimeter in its various configurations (Plokhotnichenko et al 2009a). The detector is the microchannel plate-based position-sensitive photon counter with four-electrode cathode (Debur et al 2003), and the high speed data acquisition is performed with the dedicated 'Quantochron 4-48' card plugged into the PC, which encodes and stores the coordinates and times of arrival of detected photons with 1-μs accuracy (Plokhotnichenko, Solin, & Tikhonov 2009b). The data acquired are the photon lists, which may be later arbitrarily binned for light curve and image analysis on various time scales.…”

Fast Universal Spectrophotopolarimeter for Robotic Telescopes

“…Position-Sensitive Detector, developed at Special Astrophysical Observatory of Russian Academy of Sciences, is a vacuum tube with multialkali [14] or GaAs [15] photocathode and microchannel plates to multiply the electron avalanches. Coordinates of incoming photons are measured by means of multisection metallic collector anode.…”