Progress on the development of a modular CdZnTe Compton imaging calorimeter for gamma-ray astronomy

A modular, virtual Frisch-grid cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) Compton imaging calorimeter has been in development for applications in gamma-ray astronomy. Of particular interest is the sought-after MeV regime, where measurement sensitivity has yet to compete with instruments operating in neighboring regimes. CZT provides high energy and position resolution, necessary for reconstructing the Compton scattering events that occur in this energy band. The calorimeter is currently being integrated with the Compton Pair (ComPair) telescope, a prototype gamma-ray telescope with the goal of developing future gamma-ray instrument technologies. In this presentation, we discuss the current status and capabilities of the CZT calorimeter, as well as recent results from a beam test at the High Intensity Gamma-ray Source (HIGS) at Duke University.