Although I’m educated in electronics, I’m especially interested in the area where electronics and physics meet. This concerns the physical behaviour of actuators and actuated systems as well as the physics of detectors. Having knowledge of the underlying physical processes is key when you want high-performance from an electronic controller.
In the NewAthena project that I work on, the low temperature of the cryogenic image sensor sets severe limits on the readout electronics.
At a temperature of only a few kelvin, electronic components tend not to work at all or deviate significantly from their specified room-temperature behaviour. For the readout electronics we’re thus limited in the choice of components and we have to finds new ways to make the laws of nature work for us instead of against us.
To get the best performance from the instrument, it is necessary to not only understand the physics of the detectors, but to also know the construction of the rest of the instrument. The presence of coolers and dewars for example determines possible sources of disturbances and lengths of interconnections. At the same time, we also need to consider the life-time of the instrument in space, where it is unprotected against high-energy radiation and subject to low temperatures.
I enjoy very much that I can contribute in electronics, while at the same time I have to keep track of the whole instrument and learn stuff in other fields.
