High Energy
Instrumentation

Members of the Department are leaders in the development and deployment of high energy detectors. The X-ray Instrumentation group has  been developing new detectors for X-ray astronomy since the early 1980s. Gordon Garmire is Principal Investigator for the team that built ACIS, which is one of the primary instruments on board the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A team led by John Nousek and David Burrows built the X-ray and UV/optical telescopes for the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. Nousek and Burrows are members of the Facility Science Team that is engaged in designing the next major X-ray observatory. Burrows and Falcone are developing hybrid CMOS detectors as replacements for CCDs in future X-ray astronomy missions by working closely with detector manufacturers, designing new devices, and testing them in the Department's laboratories. Grad student Steve Bongiorno is participating in the development of the CMOS detectors for his thesis.