A. Longoni

Silicon drift detectors for high resolution room temperature X-ray spectroscopy

New cylindrical silicon drift detectors have been designed, fabricated and tested. They comprise an integrated on-chip amplifier system with continuous reset, on-chip voltage divider, electron accumulation layer stabilizer, large area, homogeneous radiation entrance window and a drain for surface generated leakage current. The test of the 3.5 mm2 large individual devices, which have also been grouped together to form a sensitive area up to 21 mm2 have shown the following spectroscopic results: at room temperature (300 K) the devices have shown a full width at half maximum at the MnKα line of a radioactive 55 Fe source of 225 eV with shaping times of 250 to 500 ns. At −20°C the resolution improves to 152 eV at 2 μs Gaussian shaping. At temperatures below 200 K the energy resolution is below 140 eV. With the implementation of a digital filtering system the resolution approaches 130 eV. The system was operated with count rates up to 800 000 counts per second and per readout node, still conserving the spectroscopic qualities of the detector system.

Towards picosecond resolution with single-photon avalanche diodes

Avalanche p–n photodiodes with uniform breakdown over the junction area are known to be capable of single‐photon detection. An experimental study has been performed on the temporal resolution of these single‐photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) in measurements of the shape of ultrashort light pulses. By using an active‐quenching circuit, pulsed operation of the device has been obtained in accurately controlled conditions, avoiding spurious effects met in previous passive‐quenching circuits. Laser pulses with durations down to 150 ps FWHM have been used; the results obtained show that the resolution is remarkably better than this value. Performances and limitations of SPADs are discussed; temporal resolutions of a few tens of picoseconds may be expected.

Silicon drift detectors for high count rate X-ray spectroscopy at room temperature

Abstract Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs) combine a large sensitive area with a small value of the output capacitance and are therefore well suited for high resolution, high count rate X-ray spectroscopy. The low leakage current level obtained by the elaborated processing technology makes it possible to operate them at room temperature or with moderate cooling. A brief description of the device principle is followed by the presentation of first results of a new production of large area SDDs with external electronics. Performance and applications of the already established SDDs with on-chip amplification are summarised. Various shapes of Multichannel Drift Detectors are introduced as well as their use in new experiments like X-ray holography and in new systems like an Anger camera for γ-ray imaging.

A New Measurement of Kaonic Hydrogen X-rays

The KN system at threshold is a sensitive testing ground for low energy QCD, especially for the explicit chiral symmetry breaking. Therefore, we have measured the K-series x rays of kaonic hydrogen atoms at the DANE electron-positron collider of Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, and have de- termined the most precise values of the strong-interaction energy-level shift and width of the 1s atomic state. As x-ray detectors, we used large-area silicon drift detectors having excellent energy and timing resolution, which were developed especially for the SIDDHARTA experiment. The shift and width were determined to be ǫ1s = 283 ± 36(stat) ± 6(syst) eV and 1s = 541± 89(stat) ± 22(syst) eV, respectively. The new values will provide vital constraints on the theoretical description of the low-energy KN interaction.

Semiconductor drift chambers for position and energy measurements

Abstract Semiconductor drift chambers have been recently suggested and feasibility tests performed. This paper presents the first operative silicon drift detectors for position and energy measurements. Design criteria and experimental results in the laboratory and on an accelerator beam are reported.

Implanted silicon JFET on completely depleted high-resistivity devices

To satisfy the increasing interest in the integration of electronics onto optical and ionizing particle fully depleted detectors, a nonconventional JFET (junction field-effect transistor), designed to operate on a completely depleted, 2-k Omega -cm resistivity silicon substrate, has been designed, fabricated, and tested at room temperature. The devices show very low gate leakage current, low output conductance, a transconductance per unit gate width of 3 mS/mm, and a pinch-off voltage of -1.5 V. The integration of the devices onto the detectors makes possible the matching of the input capacitance of the JFET to the detectors output capacitance, which is of the order of few hundreds of femtorads. The measured gate capacitance of 200 fF is shown to correspond to an expected resolution in charge measurements, at room temperature, of less than 40 electrons rms. The fabrication constraints, imposed by the limited number of production steps of the detectors, are reported.<<ETX>>

Dynamics of electrons in drift detectors

Abstract The dynamics of electrons generated in silicon drift chambers by ionizing events is studied. Diffusion effects, mutual electrostatic repulsion between the electrons as well as the focusing properties of the depletion field during the electron transport to the anode are considered. The theoretical computations show that the effect of the mutual electrostatic repulsion in the spreading of the charge packet are not negligible even at charge densities produced by a minimum ionizing particle traversing 300 μm of the detector. Experimental results support theoretical expectations.

Progress in semiconductor drift detectors

Progress in testing semiconductor drift detectors is reported. Generally better position and energy resolutions were obtained than resolutions published previously. The improvement is mostly due to new electronics better matched to different detectors. It is shown that semiconductor drift detectors are becoming versatile and reliable detectors for position and energy measurements.

The pn-CCD on-chip electronics.

A new pn-CCD with an activa area of 3 × 1 cm2 was recently fabricated for ESAs X-ray Multi Mirror Mission (XMM). The front-end electronics has been integrated on the same chip as the detector, and its noise behaviour was investigated. X-rays from a 55Fe source have been used for the absolute calibration. The measured electronic Equivalent Noise Charge (ENC) of the on-chip amplifier was 8.8 e− at room temperature and 2.2 e− at the CCD operating temperature of 150 K. The improvements with respect to the last version with noise figures of 4.8 e− (at 150 K) are due to the reduction of the total input capacitance by a factor of 1.6, the improvement of the transistor transconductance by a factor of 2, and the reduction of 1ƒ noise because of the different p-well implant with a better thermal annealing.

Gamma ray spectroscopy with CsI(Tl) scintillator coupled to silicon drift chamber

A /spl gamma/-ray detector, designed around a silicon drift chamber having a diameter of 3 mm and coupled to a CsI(Tl) scintillator of the same diameter and 10 mm thick, has been realized and extensively tested. This detector may operate over a wide energy band with a minimum energy threshold that may be set around 10 keV at room temperature or at around 4 keV at 0/spl deg/C. At the typical energy of 662 keV used to characterize a /spl gamma/-ray spectrometer, an energy resolution of 4.4% full-width at half-maximum has been measured at room temperature. This detector shows high energy resolution over the full energy range explored, 6 keV-1.27 MeV, and to our knowledge the results reported are the best ever obtained with a scintillator.