A study of the active thermal control for the high energy detector on the HXMT

A thermal control system (TCS) based on the resistance heating method is designed for the High Energy Detector (HED) on the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT). The ground-based experiments of the active thermal control for the HED with the TCS are performed in the ambient temperature range from -15 to 20 ℃ by utilizing the pulse width to monitor the interior temperature of a NaI(Tl) crystal. Experimental results show that the NaI(Tl) crystal's interior temperature is from 17.4 to 21.7 ℃ when the temperature of the PMT shell is controlled within (20±3) ℃ with the TCS in the interesting temperature range, and the energy resolution of the HED is maintained at 16.2% @ 122 keV, only a little worse than that of 16.0% obtained at 20 ℃. The average power consumption of the TCS for the HED with a low-emissivity shell is about 4.3 W, which is consistent with the simulation.     

Performance of a 3 mm×3 mm silicon photomultiplier for use on the X-ray calibration system of the SVOM gamma ray monitor

The calibration detector of a gamma ray monitor (GRM) is designed to detect alpha particles from ²⁴¹Am and to send out the coincidence signal to the GRM X-ray detector. The silicon photomultiplier (SiPM), as a novel photon device, is a good candidate to convert alpha-exciting fluorescent photons into electric signals. Three types of SiPMs from SSPM and MPPC, each having an active area of 3 mm×3 mm, were compared in the matter of the spectra from low-intensity light, dark count, crosstalk probability and I-V curve. The temperature coe cient of SSPM-0710G9MM was also characterized. The application of a SiPM on the GRM has been proved to be feasible.