Hi,

I am an Associate Research Professor based at The Pennsylvania State University, (University Park, PA, USA) in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.  I work in the field of high resolution X-ray spectroscopy using high precision X-ray optics, Off-Plane Reflection Gratings and solid-state imagers.  My work is aimed towards the development of X-ray detection instrumentation for sub-orbital rocket payloads and orbital satellites.

I work with a group at the Penn State University, run by professor Randall McEntaffer, that is working on several sub-orbital rocket missions (OGRE, WRXR, TREXS).  The payloads of these missions are designed to test the effectiveness of off-plane gratings in a high resolution soft X-ray spectrometer and show that such instruments could improve understanding of shock fronts in supernova remnants and find the WHIM.  My primary responsibility is to oversee the specification, design, fabrication, testing and launch of the X-ray CCD camera intended for the mission.  In addition I assist in the integration and testing of the rocket spectrometer optics. I run all of the lab space used for the build of the rocket payloads and supervise and mentor a small team of undergraduates.

I do a lot of work with UK colleagues from the Open University, where I am a visiting researcher, on the design of the X-ray CCD camera and am a visiting researcher at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) beamlines at BESSY II (Berlin, Germany) where I have access to a high precision X-ray beam over the 50 eV to 1900 eV energy range. In addition to this, I have varying levels of experience using the following facilities:

I also have collaborations with colleagues at the University of Osaka (Japan) where we are working on an X-ray imaging system for the space mission ASTRO-H (Hitomi -  launched in 2016) .

Anything that is in bold on this website is a link - have a click around.  If any of the links are broken, please let me know!

Contact

dr (dot) james (dot) tutt (at) gmail (dot) com