Israeli company SCD's sensor to be used for exploring the solar system

It will be mounted on an instrument that will be installed on Europe's second-largest optical solar telescope, located on the Spanish island of La Palma

Israeli company SCD's sensor to be used for exploring the solar system

A SWIR sensor. Photo: SCD

Israel's Semi Conductor Devices (SCD), a developer and manufacturer of infrared detectors and high-power laser diodes, announced early this week that it has delivered a unique SWIR sensor to the Institute for Solar Physics at Stockholm University in Sweden. It will be mounted on an instrument built by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany, and will later be installed in the Swedish 1m Solar telescope (SST) on the island of La Palma, Spain. 

Following integration with the SCD SWIR sensors, the SST, the second-largest optical solar telescope in Europe, will be the first solar telescope to use hyperspectral imaging, simultaneously observing a spectrum in each pixel of an image. The unique large size and high frame-rate of the company’s SWIR sensors are essential for this imaging technique. The SST's location on La Palma, as well as the use of adaptive mirror technology and image reconstruction techniques that correct for the blurring caused by the Earth's atmosphere at high frame rates, enables optimal performance.

The SST on the island of La Palma. Photo: Göran Scharmer/Stockholm University