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August 15, 2007

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Release Date: Aug. 14, 2007

Contact: Susan Gawlowicz
585-475-5061 or [email-masked]

New Imaging Detectors Could Take Snapshots from Deep Space

RIT-UR team to develop radiation-hardy detectors

Snapshots from space may someday confirm the presence of lakes and oceans on
Europa—one of Jupiter’s moons—and on other planetary bodies. Imaging detectors
that capture information from every wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum
could detect the presence of liquid methane or hydrocarbons, the stew that just
might sustain microbial life forms.

An imaging detector under development by a team of scientists from Rochester
Institute of Technology and University of Rochester promises to revolutionize
future NASA planetary missions with technology that could withstand the harsh
radiation environments in space. The team won $592,000 from the NASA Planetary
Instrument Definition and Development Program to design, build and test a
detector that should be resilient against radiation damage. The lightweight
device will be smaller and consume less power than technology currently in use.
The novel readout circuitry design will give the device a radiation tolerance
not possible in standard optical detectors.

“All these benefits will lead to lower mission costs and greater scientific
productivity,” says Donald Figer, director of the Rochester Imaging Detector
Laboratory at RIT and lead scientist on the project. “But, ultimately, radiation
immunity is the focus.”

Figer’s team includes Zeljko Ignjatovic from UR, Zoran Ninkov from RIT,
Melissa McGrath from NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and Shouleh Nikzad from
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“Our detector captures images directly in the digital domain at the pixel
level rendering subsequent signal transmission less susceptible to cosmic
radiation environment,” says Ignjatovic, assistant professor of electrical and
computer engineering.

The new detector is based on a technology created by Ignjatovic and his
colleagues at UR in which each pixel reads and converts its signal from analog
to digital immediately upon capture. Standard optical detectors lack this
capability. Instead, signals must travel along a line of sensors to reach a
readout circuit. This wastes energy and leaves the signal vulnerable to
radiation damage that degrades the circuit over time.

“Radiation tolerant detectors are a critical need for NASA in the continued
exploration of the solar system,” says McGrath, chief scientist in the Science
and Mission Systems Office at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

“In space astronomy and planetary missions, detectors are frequently the
critical pacing item,” adds Stefi Baum, director of the Chester F. Carlson
Center for Imaging Science at RIT. “By developing detectors with greatly reduced
noise properties and greatly enhanced tolerance to radiation damage—the chief
lifetime limiter of detectors in space—the collaboration should dramatically
improve the reach in sensitivity and lifetime of the missions to explore and
understand the nature of the planets with which we share our solar system.”

Testing the overall system will determine how the sensors hold up in
cryogenic environments where the detector is cooled to very low temperatures,
imitating conditions in space. The device will be tested at RIT in the Rochester
Imaging Detector Laboratory, a new facility established to develop detector
technologies for next-generation ground-based and space telescopes.

The new imaging detector under development will boast a dynamic range and
greater short wavelength sensitivity. Figer believes the detector could become a
key technology for future planetary missions in the most severe radiation
environments. The detector technology could figure heavily in missions under
consideration for NASA’s Discovery, Mars Exploration and New Frontiers
programs.

The detector might someday be used to capture hyperspectral imaging from a
platform orbiting the outer planets or their satellites. Cameras looking down on
Europa could take a picture of every wavelength at every pixel.

“We could use that information to figure out if there are lakes of water on
Europa or hydrocarbons on Titan,” Figer says. “We can figure out the composition
of a surface without having to land on it, which we might want to do 10 years
later. Then we would know where to land.”

##

NOTE: Donald Figer was recruited by Rochester Institute of
Technology’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science through a faculty
development program grant awarded by the New York State Foundation for Science,
Technology and Innovation. The grant provides interim state assistance to help
attract distinguished faculty throughout the world to New York’s academic
research centers, and to retain leading researchers already in New York
Institutions of Higher Education.

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