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Siegmund, Oswald

Publications and source records attributed to Siegmund, Oswald.

Resistive Coatings for High-performance, Low-background MCPs Operating Across Broad Temperature Ranges and at Cryogenic Temperatures

Microchannel plate with improved thermo-electric properties are a high risk, high payoff development undertaken by a consortium of effort that links the Argonne National Lab, the Space-Science Lab at UC Berkeley and the small businesses (Incom Inc.) that will commercialize the advanced technology in open MCPs and LAPPDs. This development will satisfy the needs for new instrumentation for homeland security (non-proliferation) sensors to screen vehicles and cargo for Special Nuclear Materials (SNMs) and scientific detectors for astrophysics, electron microscopy, time-of-flight mass spectrometry, molecular and atomic collision studies, and fluorescence imaging applications in biotechnology and medical imaging products including positron emission tomography (PET scanning).

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

Fabrication and Calibration of FORTIS

The Johns Hopkins University sounding rocket group is entering the final fabrication phase of the Far-ultraviolet Off Rowland-circle Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy (FORTIS); a sounding rocket borne multi-object spectro-telescope designed to provide spectral coverage of 43 separate targets in the 900 - 1800 Angstrom bandpass over a 30' x 30' field-of-view. Using "on-the-fly" target acquisition and spectral multiplexing enabled by a GSFC microshutter array, FORTIS will be capable of observing the brightest regions in the far-UV of nearby low redshift (z approximately 0.002 - 0.02) star forming galaxies to search for Lyman alpha escape, and to measure the local gas-to-dust ratio. A large area (approximately 45 mm x 170 mm) microchannel plate detector built by Sensor Sciences provides an imaging channel for targeting flanked by two redundant spectral outrigger channels. The grating is ruled directly onto the secondary mirror to increase efficiency. In this paper, we discuss the recent progress made in the development and fabrication of FORTIS, as well as the results of early calibration and characterization of our hardware, including mirror/grating measurements, detector performance, and early operational tests of the micro shutter arrays.

Fleming, Brian T.

An Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Mission

Technical progress both in x-ray optics and in polarization-sensitive x-ray detectors, which our groups have pioneered, enables a scientifically powerful---yet inexpensive---dedicated mission for imaging x-ray polarimetry. Such a mission is sufficiently sensitive to measure x-ray (linear) polarization for a broad range of cosmic sources --particularly those involving neutron stars, stellar black holes, and supermassive black holes (active galactic nuclei). We describe the technical elements, discuss a mission concept, and synopsize the important physical and astrophysical questions such a mission would address.

Weisskopf, Martin C.

An Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Mission

Technical progress both in x-ray optics and in polarization-sensitive x-ray detectors, which our groups have pioneered, enables a scientifically powerful - yet inexpensive - dedicated mission for imaging x-ray polarimetry. Such a mission is sufficiently sensitive to measure x-ray (linear) polarization for a broad range of cosmic sources --- particularly those involving neutron stars, stellar black holes, and supermassive black holes (active galactic nuclei). We describe the technical elements, discuss a mission concept, and synopsiz:e the important physical and astrophysical questions such as mission would address.

Weisskopf, Martin C.

High Spatial Resolution Investigations of Microchannel Plate Imaging Properties for UV Detectors

Microchannel plate (MCP) photon counting detectors are currently being used with great success on many of the recent NASA/ESA ultraviolet (UV) astrophysics missions that make observations in the 1OO A - 1600 A range. These include HUT, the Wide Field Camera on ROSAT, EUVE, ALEXIS, ORFEUS, and SOHO. These devices have also been chosen to fly on future UV astrophysics missions such as FUSE, FUVITA, IMAGE, and both the HST STIS and Advanced Camera instruments. During the period of this award we have fabricated a dual-chamber vacuum test facility to carry out laboratory testing of detector resolution, image stability and linearity, and flat field performance to enable us to characterize the performance of MCPs and their associated read-out architectures. We have also fabricated and tested a laboratory 'test-bed' delay line detector, which can accommodate MCP's with a wide range of formats and run at high data rates, to continue our studies of MCP image fixed pattern noise, and particularly for new small pore MCP's which have recently come onto the market. These tests were mainly focussed on the assessment of cross delay-line (XDL) and double delay line (DDL) anode read-out schemes, with particular attention being focussed on flat-field and spatial resolution performance.

Siegmund, Oswald

Calibration of the Berkeley EUV Airglow Rocket Spectrometer

The Berkeley Extreme-ultraviolet Airglow Rocket Spectrometer (BEARS), a multiinstrument sounding rocket payload, made comprehensive measurements of the earth's dayglow. The primary instruments consisted of two near-normal Rowland mount spectrometers: one channel to measure several atomic oxygen features at high spectral resolution (about 1.5 A) in the band passes 980-1040 and 1300-1360 A, and the other to measure EUV dayglow and the solar EUV simultaneously in a much broader bandpass (250-1150 A) at moderate resolution (about 10 A). The payload also included a hydrogen Lyman-alpha photometer to monitor the solar irradiance and goecoronal emissions. The instrument was calibrated at the EUV calibration facility at the University of California at Berkeley, and was subsequently launched successfully on September 30, 1988 aboard a four-stage experimental sounding rocket, Black Brant XII flight 12.041 WT. The calibration procedure and resulting data are presented.

Cotton, Daniel M.