A CdTe position sensitive detector for a hard X- and gamma-ray wide field camera

An important region of the electromagnetic spectrum for astrophysics is the hard X- and gamma ray band between 10 keV and a few MeV, where several processes occur in a wide variety of objects and with different spatial distribution and time scales. In order to fulfill the observational requirements in this energy range and taking into account the opportunities given by small/medium size missions (e.g., on the ISS), the authors have proposed a compact, wide field camera based on a thick (1 cm) position sensitive CdTe detector (PSD). The detector is made of an array of 128x96 CdTe microspectrometers with a pixel size of 2x2 mm2. The basic element of the PSD is the linear module that is an independent detection unit with 32 CdTe crystals and monolithic front-electronics (ASIC) supported by a thin (300 microm) ceramic layer. The expected performance of the PSD over the operative energy range and some of the required ASIC functionality are presented and discussed