Direct measurement of sub-pixel structure of the EPIC MOS CCD on-board the XMM/NEWTON satellite

Abstract We have used a mesh experiment in order to measure the sub-pixel structure of the EPIC MOS CCDs on-board the XMM/NEWTON satellite. The EPIC MOS CCDs have 40 μm -square pixels which have an open electrode structure in order to improve the detection efficiency for low-energy X-rays. We obtained restored pixel images for various X-ray event grades (e.g. split-pixel events, single pixel events, etc.) at various X-ray energies. We confirmed that the open electrode structure results in a distorted horizontal pixel boundary. The open electrode region generates both single pixel events and vertically split events, but no horizontally split events. Because the single pixel events usually show the best energy resolution, we discuss a method of increasing the fraction of single pixel events from the open electrode region. Furthermore, we have directly measured the thickness of the electrodes and dead-layers by comparing spectra from the open electrode region with those from the other regions: electrodes, electrode finger and channel stop. We can say that EPIC MOS CCDs are more radiation hard than front-illumination chips of ACIS on-board Chandra X-ray Observatory because of their extra absorption thickness above the charge transfer channel. We calculated the mean pixel response and found that our estimation has a good agreement with that of the ground calibration of EPIC MOS CCD.