Caliste-SO X-ray micro-camera for the STIX instrument on-board Solar Orbiter space mission

The Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) is an instrument on the Solar-Orbiter space mission that performs hard X-ray imaging spectroscopy of solar flares. It consists of 32 collimators with grids and 32 spectrometer units called Caliste-SO for indirect Fourier-transform imaging. Each Caliste-SO device integrates a 1 cm(2) CdTe pixel sensor with a low-noise low-power analog front-end ASIC and circuits for supply regulation and filtering. The ASIC named IDeF-X HD is designed by CEA/Irfu (France) whereas CdTe-based semiconductor detectors are provided by the Laboratory for Micro- and Nanotechnology, Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland). The design of the hybrid, based on 3D Plus technology (France), is well suited for STIX spectroscopic requirements (1 keV FWHM at 6 key, 4 keV low-level threshold) and system constraints (4W power and 5 kg mass). The performance of the sub-assemblies and the design of the first Caliste-SO prototype are presented. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.