Electron Multiplying CCDs for the Pathfinder Off-Plane Grating Rocket Experiment

The Pathfinder Off-plane Grating Rocket Experiment (OGRE-P) plans to use Electron-Multiplying CCDs (EMCCDs) as the primary detectors for the mission. EMCCDs incorporate an additional gain register that amplifies the photoelectron signal before readout, increasing sensitivity by suppressing the impact of readout noise, making them ideal for low-light and high-speed X-ray imaging applications. With the additional gain, EMCCDs amplify the signal to increase signal-to-noise for each detected photon which is important for photon counting X-ray observations. In addition, the EMCCDs used have high spatial resolution and moderate energy resolution which works well with the high quantum efficiency in the soft-X-ray band. The EMCCDs being used are being developed by Teledyne e2v with the OGRE camera and electronics made by XCAM in cooperation with the Open University. The mission consists of four EMCCDs; three of which are located on a circle around the focal axis to be used for spectral data collection and the fourth directly in the center of the focal plane. This paper presents promising results on the use of EMCCDs for X-ray detection and spectral analysis for the mission as well as an update on camera calibration and operation.