EPFL Researchers Design Telescope In-Built with Semiconductor-Based Camera

Researchers have incorporated a camera in a telescope based on a semiconductor-based technology.

While penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere, gamma rays produce Cherenkov flashes, which are flashes of light captured by the telescope. EPFL along with the universities of Wurzberg, Geneva, and Dortmund, under the guidance of ETH Zurich, designed the first G-APD Cherenkov Telescope (FACT) that can observe billions of images every second using a novel camera.

This semiconductor-based camera technology is being used for the first time in astronomy. In order to solve the mystery of the origin of cosmic rays, a network of Cherenkov telescopes will be built on the same lines as FACT. The instrument’s detector is made up of light-sensitive diodes that generate an electric current while recording a Cherenkov radiation flash. The telescope incorporated with the camera is light-weight since the camera is light. The sensitivity of the telescope is good in high ambient light conditions. Hence it is possible to make observations during a full moon. The performance of the detector is unaffected when exposed to light.

A team of 45 developed the camera of the FACT telescope on the ETH Zurich campus and on completion, the detector was sent to the Canary Islands- based El Roque de los Muchachos observatory.

A team from the universities of Wurzburg and Dortmund and from EPFL had previously repaired and existing telescope and mounted the detector on it. First flash observations and calibration tests were done by an EPFL team from the High Energy Physics Laboratory.