A 50 mK test bench for demonstration of the readout chain of Athena/X-IFU

TL;DR

This paper presents a 50 mK test bench designed to validate the entire readout chain of the Athena/X-IFU instrument, a high-resolution cryogenic X-ray spectrometer planned for the ESA Athena mission.

Contribution

Development and validation of a 50 mK test bench for the complete readout chain of the Athena/X-IFU instrument, enabling end-to-end testing of the detector system.

Findings

Test bench successfully validated with intermediate detection chain from NIST and Goddard.

Planned integration of DRE and WFEE prototypes for full system demonstration.

Supports development of high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy for space missions.

Abstract

The X-IFU (X-ray Integral Field Unit) onboard the large ESA mission Athena (Advanced Telescope for High ENergy Astrophysics), planned to be launched in the mid 2030s, will be a cryogenic X-ray imaging spectrometer operating at 55 mK. It will provide unprecedented spatially resolved high-resolution spectroscopy (2.5 eV FWHM up to 7 keV) in the 0.2-12 keV energy range thanks to its array of TES (Transition Edge Sensors) microcalorimeters of more than 2k pixel. The detection chain of the instrument is developed by an international collaboration: the detector array by NASA/GSFC, the cold electronics by NIST, the cold amplifier by VTT, the WFEE (Warm Front-End Electronics) by APC, the DRE (Digital Readout Electronics) by IRAP and a focal plane assembly by SRON. To assess the operation of the complete readout chain of the X-IFU, a 50 mK test bench based on a kilo-pixel array of microcalorimeters from NASA/GSFC has been developed at IRAP in collaboration with CNES. Validation of the test bench has been performed with an intermediate detection chain entirely from NIST and Goddard. Next planned activities include the integration of DRE and WFEE prototypes in order to perform an end-to-end demonstration of a complete X-IFU detection chain.