Polarimetry promises to be an important tool for discriminating between competing models in many areas of high-energy astrophysics including black holes, pulsars, and gamma-ray bursts. However, limitations in instrumental sensitivity have hindered progress since the first measurement of the Crab in the 1970’s. In recent years there have been numerous efforts to develop instruments with the...
A photon counting camera based on the Teledyne-e2v CCD201-20 electron multiplying CCD (EMCCD) is being developed for the NASA WFIRST coronagraph, an exoplanet imaging technology development of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, CA) that is scheduled to launch in 2026. The coronagraph is designed to directly image planets around nearby stars, and to characterize their spectra. The...
The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is a NASA flagship space observatory due to launch in the mid-2020s. In addition to probing dark energy and carrying out broad infrared surveys with the Wide-Field Instrument, WFIRST will also image and spectrally characterize extrasolar planets with a coronagraph at an unprecedented level of sensitivity. The faint planet targets require photon...
Electron multiplying (EM)-CCD technology has been successfully implemented for many ground-based applications (from astronomical telescopes to synchrotrons and life sciences), but has yet to be utilized within the space environment. The technology has the potential to offer superior photon-counting performance compared to competing technologies, however the effects of radiation damage must be...
