Performance of a Miniature Mechanically Cooled HPGe Gamma-Spectrometer for Space Applications
Journal of Instrumentation 2018
Vladimir Kondratjev, Aleksandr Pchelintcev, Oļegs Jakovļevs, Aleksandr Sokolov, Vladimir Gostilo, Alan Owens

We report on the development of a miniaturized HPGe gamma-spectrometer for space applications. The instrument is designed around a 158 cm3 intrinsically pure Ge crystal in the closed-end coaxial configuration, cooled by a Thales RM3 miniature Stirling cycle electric cooler. To compensate the noise induced by the mechanical cooler the digital procession of the spectrometric signals with low frequency reject filter (LFR) is applied. The complete spectrometer assembly has a mass of 3.1 kg and consumes less than 10 W under working operation. The spectrometer was tested under a number of operating conditions in a specially designed chamber, which simulates the space environment. With the mechanical cooler switched off, FWHM energy resolutions of 1.5 keV and 2.2 keV were obtained at 122 keV and 1333 keV, respectively, at the nominal operating temperature of 90 K. When the cooler was switched on the energy resolutions degraded to 2.5 keV and 4 keV respectively. However, with the LFR filter switched in, the resolutions improved significantly to 1.8 keV and 2.4 keV.


Keywords
Cryocoolers; Gamma detectors (scintillators, CZT, HPG, HgI etc); Spectrometers
DOI
10.1088/1748-0221/13/01/T01002
Hyperlink
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-0221/13/01/T01002

Kondratjev, V., Pchelintcev, A., Jakovļevs, O., Sokolov, A., Gostilo, V., Owens, A. Performance of a Miniature Mechanically Cooled HPGe Gamma-Spectrometer for Space Applications. Journal of Instrumentation, 2018, Vol.13, January 2018, pp.1-13. e-ISSN 1748-0221. Available from: doi:10.1088/1748-0221/13/01/T01002

Publication language
English (en)
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