Position sensitive x- and gamma-ray scintillator detector for new space telescopes

The instruments on board the latest gamma observatories (INTEGRAL, SWIFT, AGILE, GLAST) combines technologies based on solid state and on scintillator detector, the first one being favorite when a low energy threshold and a good energy resolution is required, the latter being more convenient for large volume when worse performance are still acceptable. With the developments achieved both with the new scintillator material and even more with new low-noise light readout devices the differences between the two techniques are narrowing and for some application the cheaper scintillator detector can compete with solid state devices. Starting from the techniques used in INTEGRAL-IBIS and AGILE a new generation position sensitive X and gamma ray detector based on scintillator with Silicon Drift Chamber readout has been developed and tested. The ASIC read-out electronics make it suitable for replication in a large scale when a great number of pixel is needed. The performance of the detector as well as its applications in new generation space telescopes are presented and discussed.