Performance Measurements of an Intensified APS Detector for SPICE on Solar Orbiter

The Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument for the Solar Orbiter mission will make spectroscopic observations of the Sun's low corona to characterize the plasma properties of the source regions of the solar wind. The detector package for SPICE, provided by the NASA Goddard Space FLight Center, consists of two microchannel-plate (MCP) intensified Active Pixel Sensor (APS) detectors covering the short (702-792 Angstroms) and long (972-1050 Angstroms) wavelength bandpasses. The long wavelength detector will also provide coverage in second order between 485-525 Angstroms. We report here on measurements made on the engineering model of the SPICE detector in a vacuum tank facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Harwell, UK. These measurements include the detector flat field, sensitivity, resolution, linearity, and statistical noise. A krypton resonance lamp operating at 1236 Angstroms was used to stimulate the detector. Results at this wavelength are combined with the quantum efficiency measurements of the individual MCPs at this and other wavelengths covering the entire wavelength range to provide a complete calibration curve for the instrument. A calibrated NIST photodiode was used to determine the absolute brightness of the lamp.