The high energy instrument PDS on-board the BeppoSAX X–ray astronomysatellite

BeppoSAX/PDS experiment is one of four narrow field instruments of the BeppoSAX payload, that also includes two wide field cameras. The goal of PDS is to extend the energy range of BeppoSAX to hard X–rays. The operative energy range of PDS is 15 to 300 keV, where the experiment can perform sensitive spectral and temporal studies of celestial sources. The PDS detector is composed of 4 actively shielded NaI(Tl)/CsI(Na) phoswich scintillators with a total geometric area of and a field of view of 13 (FWHM). In this paper we describe the experiment design and discuss its functional performance and calibration data analysis system.