Experimental Astronomy

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-023-09890-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The Improved X-ray Detector (iXRD) on Sharjah-Sat-1,

design principles, tests and ground calibration

Emrah Kalemci1 · Ali M. Altıngün1 · Ayhan Bozkurt1 · Alim Rüstem Aslan2 ·

Refik Yalçın1 · Kaya Gökalp1 · Kaan Veziroğlu1 · Ilias Fernini3,4 ·
Antonios Manousakis3,4 · Ali Yaşar1 · Milad Diba5 · Boğaç Karabulut2 ·
Egemen Çatal2 · Onur Öztekin2

Received: 11 July 2022 / Accepted: 31 January 2023

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2023

Abstract
The iXRD is the primary science payload on Sharjah-Sat-1, a 3U CubeSat expected
to be launched in Q4, 2022. Its main scientific goal is monitoring bright hard X-ray
sources and transients in 20 - 200 keV band. The iXRD consists of a CdZnTe crystal
(6.45 cm2 area, 5 mm thickness), a Tungsten collimator with square holes with an
opening angle of 4.26◦ , readout and control electronics and power supply circuitry,
a back-shield and mechanical structures. Some of the design elements of iXRD have
been inherited from the XRD on BeEagleSat with significant improvements in terms
of collecting area, X-ray background and electronic noise. In this article, the design
of the iXRD is discussed in detail taking into account mechanical, electronic, control
software and data handling aspects. Its expected performance is determined after
ground calibration. Depending on the pixel size, the energy resolution is 4 - 7 keV at
60 keV and the minimum detectable energy is 19 - 23 keV.

Keywords CubeSats · X-ray detectors · High energy astrophysics ·

CdZnTe detectors

1 Introduction

The Sharjah-Sat-1 is a 3U CubeSat with the major aim of observing the bright hard
X-ray sources and the Sun’s hot corona. The primary payload of Sharjah-Sat-1 is
the iXRD, which utilizes a CdZnTe based semiconductor detector and a Tungsten

 Emrah Kalemci
ekalemci@sabanciuniv.edu
 Ali M. Altıngün
aaltingun@sabanciuniv.edu

Extended author information available on the last page of the article.

 Experimental Astronomy

collimator. The instrument operates in the 20 – 200 keV band with the scientific
emphasis of long term time variability and state transitions of bright accreting com-
pact objects. The secondary payload is a set of optical cameras for low-resolution
remote sensing applications (see Fig. 1 for assembly drawings of the satellite and
the payloads). Sharjah-Sat-1 is being built as a collaborative effort among the Shar-
jah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences and Technology, University of Sharjah,
Istanbul Technical University, and Sabanci University. The project not only serves as
a purely scientific purpose, but also provides a platform for education and capacity
building for students and engineers at the respective institutes involved in the design
and testing of the instrument from the development of the concept to the launch and
operations [1]. For the details of the scientific aspects of the iXRD, see [2]. For the
in-orbit background and sensitivity estimations, see [3]. Sharjah-Sat-1 was launched
on January 3rd, 2023, and as of writing this article it is in Launch and Early Orbit
Phase (LEOP) with no identified problems.
CubeSats, thanks to their low cost, fast turnaround times and ability to use
commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, led to a revolution in satellite devel-
opment. While the capacity of a single unit (1U) is very limited, larger satellites still
conforming to cubesat standards (3U, 6U, 12U, and even larger units) have been
designed and produced to conduct meaningful science through finding niche appli-
cations and ideas that are very difficult to conduct with larger satellites. Astrophysics
and space sciences have benefited from this revolution [4, 5], and tens of small
missions are currently being built to take advantage of easier access to space.
For the given main scientific objective of the Sharjah-Sat-1, observing bright com-
pact sources, our mission may be most compared to NinjaSat [6], expected to be
launched in 2023. The satellite is equipped with two identical non-imaging Gas Mul-
tiplier Counters sensitive to X-rays in the 2–50 keV band with a total effective area

Fig. 1 Right: The Sharjah-Sat-1 assembly with subsystems indicated. The iXRD is at the bottom. Left:
Payloads, the optical camera and the iXRD
Experimental Astronomy

of 36 cm2 at 6 keV. The detectors have 2 X-ray collimators of 2.1◦ field-of-view and
the mission is aimed at studying time variability of compact objects.
BlackCAT is a 6U mission, and one of its scientific objectives, detecting and
studying black holes in outburst, is similar to the main objective of Sharjah-Sat-
1. BlackCAT has a wide field of view [7] through a coded mask, and uses Hybrid
CMOS X-ray detectors operating in the 1-20 keV band. BlackCat is being funded by
a NASA APRA grant and is expected to be launched in 2024.
For solar observations, the relevant CubeSat missions are the Miniature X-ray
Solar Spectrometers MinXSS [8] and MinXSS-2 [9]. These CubeSats utilize COTS
Silicon drift detectors and are operational in 0.4 – 30 keV band. In the energy band
of the iXRD, there are no cubeSats dedicated to solar observations as the nature of
solar flares tends to produce soft X-rays. However, when detected, hard X-rays are
essential to calculate the total energy in non-thermal electrons and provide direct
information regarding the electron properties in solar corona [10].
CdZnTe has been used in large and small missions as detector material due to
its room temperature operation and large stopping power. CdZnTe crystals have
been used at the focal plane of the NuStar X-ray telescope [11] and as the detec-
tor plane in coded mask imagers of ASIM [12] on the International Space Station,
CZTI on AST ROSAT [13] and BAT on Neil Gehrels SWIFT Observatory [14]. For
CubeSat missions, CdZnTe based detectors have been utilized in AAUSAT-2 (http://
studentspace.aau.dk/aausatii/) and XRD on BeEagleSat [15] as technology demon-
strators, and on CXBN-I and CXBN-II to characterize the cosmic X-ray background
in 30-60 keV band [16, 17].

2 Instrument design

The iXRD is a hard X-ray detector comprising a CdZnTe crystal, RENA 3b [18]
application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for readout, a MSP 430 microcontroller,
associated power and data handling circutry on two PCBs, a Tungsten collimator,
a Tungsten back-shield and mechanical structures to integrate to the main satellite.
Some aspects of the design are similar to its predecessor, the XRD on BeEagleSAT
[15]. Thanks to lessons learned in developing the XRD, the iXRD design had sev-
eral improvements (hence the name “iXRD”) in terms of performance and scientific
aim. Specifically, the noise performance is improved by separating the digital con-
trol circuitry as a back-end electronics board (called motherboard), and ASIC and
its associated regulators as a front-end electronics board (called daughterboard). The
crystal on iXRD is larger and has pixels rather than strips. Finally, by adding a col-
limator and a back-shield we reduced the background and made iXRD a system
capable of observing point sources while the XRD was only a demonstrator with no
pointing capability.

2.1 CdZnTe crystal and its pixel map

The iXRD utilizes a COTS pixellated CdZnTe crystal from eV Products (part of
Kromek Group). The crystal is 25.4 x 25.4 x 5 mm3 in volume, considerably larger
 Experimental Astronomy

Fig. 2 a: CdZnTe crystal and flex-rigid assembly, side view. b: CdZnTe crystal connected to the
daughterboard in test setup

than the strip detector used in XRD (15 x 15 x 3 mm3 ). The crystal has 256 pixels
with a pitch of 1.6 mm and has 3x100 pin connectors for easy attachment to a PCB
(see Fig. 2). Prior to iXRD integration two crystals have been tested with an existing
Gamma-camera system at Sabanci University and it was confirmed that all pixels
are operating with similar performance in terms of energy resolution and quantum
efficiency. A rigid-flex PCB is attached to the top of the crystal with conductive
epoxy to provide high voltage and to read out the cathode signal (see Fig. 2 and
Section 2.2).
The readout ASIC RENA 3b has 36 channels, therefore we needed to create groups
of small pixels connected to each other to form 35 larger pixels (one readout channel
is set aside for the cathode signal). The final pixel map is shown in Fig. 3 which is
decided after the initial pixel map chosen showed poor performance in some pixel
groups in early TVAC tests [19]. The decision is also based on poor performance of
large pixels during calibration runs (see Section 3).

2.2 Mechanical design

The mechanical design and components that make up the iXRD are shown in the
exploded CAD image given in Fig. 4. From the top, the components are:
1. Aluminum optical blocker
2. Tungsten collimator
Experimental Astronomy

Fig. 3 The pixel grouping used in iXRD

Fig. 4 Exploded view of the overall iXRD. Screws and nuts for mechanical attachment are not shown
 Experimental Astronomy

3. Mechanical piece to attach collimator to Sharjah-Sat top.

4. Mechanical structure to attach collimator to the rods.
5. CdZnTe crystal and the flex-rigid PCB for HV connection.
6. Daughterboard PCB
7. Tungsten backshield
8. Motherboard PCB

The optical blocker is a piece of aluminum 0.3 mm thick and attached to the top
of the collimator with conductive epoxy. Its main aim is to block optical light and it
also provides some protection against low energy charged particles.
The collimator is produced from 95% Tungsten with 5% non-magnetic Ni-CU
alloy with electrical discharge machining (EDM) from a single block. Its collimated
part is 61.8 mm long and consists of 36 holes with size 4.6 x 4.6 mm providing a full
width half maximum (FWHM) opening of 4.26◦ . The entire length of the collimator
is 75.4 mm covering the entire crystal for extra background protection from the sides.
The distance between the collimator and the daughterboard is 0.5 mm. Since the
collimator is heavy (466 gr), it is attached to the satellite from the top and by the rods
with aluminum structures 3 and 4 shown in Fig. 4.
The CdZnTe crystal assembly (see Section 2.1) sits on top of the daughterboard
PCB (6) and a flex cable passes through a hole in the daughterboard to the bottom of
the daughterboard to a SAMTEC ZTF connector (see Fig. 2).
The daughterboard (6) carries the crystal, RENA ASIC and its coupling capacitors
and resistors, associated voltage regulators and one thermocouple. It is produced as
an 8 layer PCB.
The Tungsten backshield (7) is placed between the motherboard and daughter-
board and it is connected to the ground through the rods. It provides protection
from albedo photons and other particles (Altingun et al. submitted [3]) and also acts
as an additional ground layer to protect sensitive daughterboard components from
electromagnetic interference coming from the motherboard.
The motherboard is also an 8 layer PCB carrying the microcontroller, power and
communication circuitry as well as the HV supply. It includes a standard PC104 con-
nector for electrical and mechanical interface to the main satellite. The motherboard
and the daughterboard are connected electrically with two low profile SAMTEC
connectors and aluminum spacers are used for the mechanical stability of the entire
system.

2.3 Power and data handling design

The electrical and data interfaces of the iXRD are shown in Fig. 5. 3.3 V and battery
voltage (Vbat , 7.4 - 8 V) are the main power inputs that are provided by the satellite
electrical power system (EPS), the incoming power traces are connected to switches
at the iXRD motherboard. Each of these switches are controlled by the on-board
computer (OBC) at the satellite through the PC104 connector bus. Vbat is fed to the
individual 5V regulators at the motherboard and the daughterboard. Individual 5V
Low-Dropout Regulators (LDO) are utilized with a purpose of providing a very low-
noise voltage to power the RENA ASIC. The output of 5V regulator at the daughter
Experimental Astronomy

Fig. 5 Electrical and serial interfaces of the iXRD

board is further converted into required voltages for the RENA chip operation through
additional low-noise LDO regulators. The high voltage (COTS, HVP US Series) that
biases the CdZnTe crystal with -500V is supplied from the motherboard and high
voltage traces are isolated from the rest of the circuit to prevent discharges. Digital
and analog sections are physically separated in order to keep noise coupling to the
analog acquisition pins of RENA as minimum as possible. Noise testing showed
that 5V regulator at the daughterboard is the most critical part for a noise floor that
satisfies our minimum detectable energy criteria of 25 keV for large pixels. Exposed
ground traces have been routed around the regulator to attach further shielding against
electromagnetic interference (EMI) from the environment (see Fig. 2, b).
Since the microcontroller (MSP430F5438A) uses 3.3V and the RENA uses 5V for
digital operation, level shifters are necessary. The circuitry also includes comparators
and LVDS elements for proper control of RENA with the microcontroller. There is
a single temperature sensor located close to RENA on the daughterboard to monitor
system temperature. There are two SD Cards for redundancy. The commanding and
data transfer are done using a UART interface to the OBC.

2.4 Software

2.4.1 General operation

The operational modes of the iXRD, and transitions between them are shown in
Fig. 6. The main operational modes are IDLE, DIAGNOSTIC, DATA ACQUISI-
TION, and DATA PROCESSING. The system starts in IDLE mode and switches
between modes when the respective command is received via UART communication.
From the topmost level the iXRD does two things. Processing received commands
and handling the current state. Processing commands simply consists of parsing the
command buffer and getting out the message id. A simple switch statement calls
 Experimental Astronomy

Fig. 6 The operational modes of the iXRD, and transitions between them. Red lines indicate return to the
IDLE mode when an error is generated in any of the modes

the respective function for the command with the received data (if there are any).
After handling the command buffer, handling the current operation mode is done.
All communication between the OBC and the iXRD is done using the KISS (Keep
It Simple, Stupid, [20]) terminal node controller protocol over UART. As for the file
management, the SD cards are partitioned into 512-byte blocks and we iterate over
the available blocks while reading and writing to the SD card. There is header infor-
mation at the beginning of each block which consists of a block number, run number,
and a timestamp. This makes sure that each consecutive block will have increasing
block ids and this fact is exploited in the reading and writing operations as we are
binary searching the whole block space to find the last written or read block. There
is no file system used in this process.

2.4.2 Operation modes

The first operation mode of iXRD is the IDLE mode. The system starts and stays in
IDLE mode until a mode change command is received. Switching to and from IDLE
mode is stateless as it does not change any stateful information like variables. After
every other mode, the current mode is changed to IDLE mode without the need for
a mode change command. The system state is cleared (excluding the SD card data)
every time there is an exit from a mode.
Diagnostic mode tests several different sub-systems and peripherals like the SD
cards, the temperature sensor, and RENA through sending a pre-defined configura-
tion with an expected response. Both SD cards are tested with dummy write and
read-backs. If the current SD card is faulty, the system switches to the other SD card.
The errors are logged as housekeeping data with timestamps and run numbers. At any
point in the lifetime of the program, the current status can be fetched by the OBC.
The current status only changes after the DIAGNOSTIC mode. Fetching the current
status also returns the most recent 20 errors in addition to the general status of the
iXRD (OK or ERROR). The errors can be generated in the DATA ACQUISITION
and DATA PROCESSING modes as well. In DATA ACQUISITION, extremely high
count rate indicating a problem with electronic noise interrupts the acquisition. In
Experimental Astronomy

this case system returns to IDLE and a safer configuration is sent to RENA. HV turn-
ing off, and not being able to write to the chosen SD card during acquisition are other
cases generating errors. In these cases the system is reset and if necessary the second
SD card is used. It is planned to check all error messages on ground with the incom-
ing housekeeping file and applying appropriate recovery measures during operation.
While the options are limited, the software is written such that it accepts configura-
tion files from the ground, allowing turning off RENA channels and changing their
thresholds.
The main operation mode of the iXRD is the DATA ACQUISITON. This state
continues until the desired time limit or event limit is reached, which is set by a
command. It can also be interrupted via a command, or fault. The mode starts with
enabling interrupts from RENA. RENA readout chip sends interrupts for the hits
detected and the microcontroller handles incoming interrupts and reads the output of
the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for the received event. There are 36 different
channels through that an event can be received. As an event interrupt is received the
triggered channels are received as a bit stream from RENA and a bit stream for the
channels to read from is sent back to RENA. For each triggered channel the ADU
(Analog-to-Digital Unit) is saved with the triggered channel information. Once the
event buffer gets to 512 bytes it is written to the SD card and the event buffer is
cleared.
The DATA PROCESSING mode reads the raw data from the SD card and pro-
cesses it to create spectra and light curves in pre-defined energy levels. It starts
automatically after a successful data acquisition, or it can be initiated with a com-
mand from the IDLE mode (see Fig. 6). A rough calibration is performed based on
channel-to-energy values obtained on-ground (see Section 3). The plan is to send
binned data through UHF-VHF while sending the raw data through S-Band allowing
recovery of useful information in case S-band communication is not available.

2.4.3 Dead time

The iXRD has a complex, non-paralyzable dead-time behavior set by the software
and electronical noise properties of the system. With the maximum speed of the
microprocessor, it takes 135 μs for the system to start measuring triggered channels
amplitudes with its ADC. Readout of each triggered channel’s amplitude takes 25
μs. The system does not accept a new trigger during this time. Therefore each event
creates approximately 200 μs to 1000 μs dead time depending on how many chan-
nels are read. Moreover, during testing it was realized that writing to SD card creates
and artificial trigger in the system due to the relatively large current drawn by the
writing operation. For this reason when the event buffer gets to 512 bytes, the system
is not allowed to trigger for an additional 700 μs during the writing operation. Given
that the expected background rates and typical count rates of bright sources add up
to only around 6 cts/s [3], the dead time fraction would be very small, around 1%
in the worst case. However, there is also instrumental noise due to electromagnetic
coupling of RENA with the rest of the electronics in the satellite. One can carefully
determine the threshold levels for each channel such that the electronic instrumental
noise never triggers the system. However, setting the threshold too high also means
 Experimental Astronomy

that actual signals at low energies will not be detected. To obtain reasonable livetime
fractions (90%), the electronic noise related background triggers should be less than 5
cts/s/channel, and this can be achieved by adjusting the threshold levels (before flight
and during operations). The flight software allows uploading a new set of threshold
values to be written to a specific block of the SD card and a command configures
RENA with the new set of thresholds.

3 Ground calibration

Ground calibration of the energy response of the iXRD was performed by using two
radioactive sources, 241 Am (59.5 keV) and 57 Co (122.1 keV, 136.5 keV). In addition,
a pulser was used to determine the electronic noise and the intrinsic energy resolution
for each channel.

3.1 Calibration setup

The calibration setup of the iXRD is shown in Fig. 7. The system was placed in
a metal box to isolate the electronics from outer electromagnetic interference. The
power to the system is provided with an external power supply, and the metal box is
connected to the power supply ground. The setup includes UART connections with
octocouplers to isolate possibly noisy PC ground from the system ground. There are
also connections to RENA test outputs to measure noise levels in selected RENA
channels (connected to one of the anodes and the cathode).
Since the iXRD collimator has a field of view of 4.26◦ , and our radioactive cali-
bration sources also have a collimated exit hole, the top of the collimator was scanned
to collect statistically significant amount of data for each pixel.

Fig. 7 The picture of the test setup for the iXRD system. The radioactive source was placed on the top of
the metal box. The distance between the top the box and the surface of the collimator is approximately 5
cm
Experimental Astronomy

3.2 Calibration procedure and results

We first determined the minimum threshold levels to allow triggering in each RENA
channel. This is a critical process, because the microcontroller’s operating frequency
is relatively low and unnecessary triggers from electronic noise may overwhelm
the data acquisition code (see Section 2.4.3). Moreover, our initial tests indicated
that the electronic readout induces noise in RENA as well, and the level of noise
depends on the count rate. Therefore we operated the pulser with a count rate
higher than expected from background in orbit and adjusted the threshold levels
such that the resulting pulser spectrum does not contain a red tail from instrumental
noise.
The calibration to obtain the photon energies from the ADUs was performed by
fitting Gaussian functions to the 59.5 keV and 122.1 keV peaks from 241 Am and
57 Co sources, respectively. In addition to that, a linear function is employed to model

the low energy tail of the corresponding peaks. Two spectra with the best fit models
are shown for channel 13 for illustration purposes in Fig. 8. For the calibration, only
events that leave signals on one channel and the cathode wwere adopted, the events
that are shared between more than one channel were excluded.
A linear fit is performed to find the calibration parameters to go from the ADUs
to energy. The energy resolution is calculated from the full width of half maximum
(FWHM) of the Gaussian peaks.
The pulser is connected to the charge sensitive preamplifiers in RENA through a
small coupling capacitor. Therefore, the FWHM value of the peak acquired by the
pulser is a measure of the readout electronic noise level, including the capacitive
noise of pixels under dark current. The pulser signal amplitude is set to have a peak
close the 241 Am line (Fig. 9). In principle, one can obtain the intrinsic noise level of
the crystal due to material properties and weighting potential distributions by sub-
tracting the pulser signal in quadrature from those of the 241 Am peak at 59.5 keV for
each channel [21].
The typical calibrated spectra for different pixel sizes are shown in Fig. 9. As
expected, as the pixel size increases, the resolution gets worse due to “small pixel
effect” (see [21] and references therein). Table 1 shows the averaged energy resolu-
tion results per channel group (see Fig. 3) for different signal sources. The energy
resolution for larger pixels worsens considerably for 122 keV peak, from 4.3 keV to
10.6 keV. The same table also shows the minimum detectable energies after calibra-
tion. From single pixels to large pixels, the minimum detectable energy moves from
19.2 keV to 23.6 keV.
We also analysed the cathode signals. Ratio of the cathode signals to the anode
signals can be used to estimate the depth of interaction (DOI) and the the energy res-
olution can be improved by using the DOI information [22]. The calibrated cathode
spectra for the two radioactive sources and the pulser are demonstrated in Fig. 10.
The FWHM values are 17.73, 17.67, and 30.07 keV for the pulser, 241 Am, and
57 Co peaks, respectively. This indicates that the electronic noise is quite dominant

for the cathode. Also, the 122 keV peak from the 57 Co source exhibits a long low
energy tail showing that the cathode signals are severely affected from the hole
trapping.
 Experimental Astronomy

Fig. 8 Examples for the fit models used in the calibration processes. A Gaussian and a linear component
are used to model the peaks and the low energy tails, respectively

4 Discussion

In this section, the overall results are discussed in terms of design drivers and other
factors affecting the performance of the system.
Experimental Astronomy

Fig. 9 The energy spectra for Ch13 (single), Ch11 (small, 6 pixel), Ch14 (medium, 9 pixel), and Ch28
(large, 11 pixel). The results from the 57 Co source are normalized by using the 241 Am peak counts

4.1 Design drivers

CubeSats provide great opportunities to test and validate detector designs directly in
space environment and can be used as gateways to design and produce larger systems
geared for impactful science. On the other hand, the physical, power and communi-
cation constraints of CubeSats result in trade-offs with science output and may create
performance problems. Fast turnaround times mean that some decisions are made

Table 1 Energy resolution and minimum detectable energy values for each channel group averaged over
the number of channels

Group Channel Pulser 241 Am 57 Co Minimum

Name Numbers FWHM FWHM FWHM Detectable
(keV) (keV) (keV) Energy (keV)

Single 12, 13, 16, 17, 3.787 ± 0.009 4.394 ± 0.005 4.325 ± 0.007 19.2
23, 24, 25
Small 10, 11, 19, 20, 3.883 ± 0.007 4.856 ± 0.007 7.149 ± 0.013 19.48
31
Medium 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 5.576 ± 0.026 6.534 ± 0.009 9.380 ± 0.025 22.67
14, 15, 18, 21,
22, 27, 32, 33
Large 0, 2, 7, 8, 26, 5.973 ± 0.018 7.055 ± 0.008 10.592 ± 0.018 23.56
28, 29, 30, 34

The errors in FWHM calculations are less than 0.5%

 Experimental Astronomy

Fig. 10 The energy spectra for the cathode. The results from the 57 Co and the pulser source are normalized
by using the 241 Am peak counts

with little tests. The iXRD is not an exception. For example, the collimator and the
back-shield designs are motivated by not only science aspects, but also being able
to fit the system in the CubeSat envelope and produce it commercially with a rea-
sonable budget. The length of the collimator is fixed by the other subsystems and
the envelope of the 3U cubeSat, and the wall thickness is fixed by the constraints
of the manufacturing technology, resulting in 4.26◦ FWHM opening angle, larger
than typically used in X-ray detectors (∼ 1◦ ). While this increases the Cosmic X-ray
background entering the crystal (see [3] for the discussion of background in iXRD),
given the estimated attitude control uncertainty of 1◦ in Sharjah-Sat-1, a very restric-
tive FOV may have resulted in not keeping the target on-sight. Since the sensitivity
of our instrument is around 180 mCrab[3], source confusion is not an issue.
The decision to use RENA 3b as the readout ASIC (and not taking full advantage
of 256 small pixels available in the crystal used) is motivated by the XRD heritage as
at the start of the project there was a code to control RENA with the MSP 430 micro-
controller, and also a complete knowledge of possible noise problems associated with
RENA. Given the initial short turnaround time (2 years, which was later extended
because of the pandemic during production and testing) it was deemed to risky to use
different readout electronics options for the ASIC and the microcontroller.

4.2 Factors affecting detector performance

While CdZnTe detectors have been used extensively in space due to many advantages
of the material, they are known to suffer from hole trapping effects. With our calibra-
tion setup, we were able to determine the intrinsic noise contribution due to crystal
properties [21]. The average intrinsic noise contribution of the crystal is calculated
as 2.23, 2.93, 3.41, and 4.03 keV for single, small, medium, and large pixel groups
Experimental Astronomy

respectively for measurements at 60 keV. These contributions are all smaller than the
FWHM measured with the pulser. Therefore under 60 keV, the system is dominated
by electronic noise. Measurements at 122 keV show that except single pixels, the
hole trapping becomes dominant as expected. Similar conclusions can be made for
the cathode, it is a planar electrode covering the entire detector area. It suffers from
both large electronic noise as well as hole trapping effects. While at the start of the
project we were expecting to use the DOI information for spectral improvements in
the processed mode spectra, with the observed resolution and minimum detectable
energy it was decided not to implement this feature in the code.
We have utilized extensive simulation tools to model electronic and material con-
tributions to the noise and calculated the sensitivity of our detector in Altıngün et al.
[3]. While using a thinner crystal could have helped in the intrinsic energy resolution,
we opted for the best available COTS crystal to avoid potential setbacks with the pro-
duction uncertainties and integration of a custom made crystal. Given the small size,
our detector is not very sensitive above 100 keV anyways, and the main contribution
of noise is readout electronics and pixel sizes.
Our (and any) detector system is susceptible to electronic noise caused by elec-
tromagnetic interference, grounding issues, and noise in the input power. The ground
calibration discussed here is achieved after iterations of designs and setups to mini-
mize this noise. However, the actual flight performance of the system depends on new
set of conditions with flight electronics, power supply and grounding. Initial integra-
tion tests are ongoing and they indicate that the noise will be higher than reported in
this work. The flight model performance under tests and in-orbit will be the subject
of future work.

Acknowledgements The development of iXRD has been supported by University of Sharjah, Sabancı
University and Tübitak Project 116F151. The authors thank Süleyman Çelik at SUNUM, Sabanci
University for critical technical support in crystal attachment.

Author Contributions E.K and A.A wrote the main manuscript text. A.A, R.Y, M.D. conducted on-
ground calibration tests. R.Y, K.V., and A.B. designed and tested electronic boards. K.G., A.B. wrote
control software. A.Y., O.O. worked on mechanical design, R.A, B.K., E.C.,I.F., A.M. worked on design
issues related to CubeSat integration. All authors read, reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

Funding University of Sharjah, Sabancı University and Tübitak Project 116F151.

Availability of data and materials All data and materials may be made available upon individual
requests to E.K.

Code Availability iXRD control code may be made available upon individual requests to E.K.

Declarations
Consent to Participate All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Consent for Publication All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Conflict of Interests There is no conflict of interest declared by authors.

 Experimental Astronomy

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 Experimental Astronomy

Affiliations

Emrah Kalemci1 · Ali M. Altıngün1 · Ayhan Bozkurt1 · Alim Rüstem Aslan2 ·

Refik Yalçın1 · Kaya Gökalp1 · Kaan Veziroğlu1 · Ilias Fernini3,4 ·
Antonios Manousakis3,4 · Ali Yaşar1 · Milad Diba5 · Boğaç Karabulut2 ·
Egemen Çatal2 · Onur Öztekin2

Ayhan Bozkurt
abozkurt@sabanciuniv.edu
Alim Rüstem Aslan
aslanr@itu.edu.tr
Refik Yalçın
refikyalcin@sabanciuniv.edu
Kaya Gökalp
kayagokalp@sabanciuniv.edu
Kaan Veziroğlu
kveziroglu@sabanciuniv.edu
Ilias Fernini
ifernini@sharjah.ac.ae
Antonios Manousakis
amanousakis@sharjah.ac.ae
Ali Yaşar
aliyasar@sabanciuniv.edu
Milad Diba
mdiba@ucsc.edu
Boğaç Karabulut
bkarabulut@itu.edu.tr
Egemen Çatal
egemen.catal@itu.edu.tr
Onur Öztekin
oztekinon@itu.edu.tr
1 Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Sabanciı University, Orta Mah. Tuzla,
Istanbul, 34956, Turkey
2 Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Istanbul Technical University,
Ayazaga Campus Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
3 Department of Applied Physics and Astronomy, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, 610101, UAE
4 Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences, and Technology, University of Sharjah,
Sharjah, 610101, UAE
5 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz,
1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, 95064, CA, USA