RESUMEN

Chromium compensated GaAs or GaAs:Cr sensors provided by the Tomsk State University (Russia) were characterized using the low noise, charge integrating readout chip JUNGFRAU with a pixel pitch of 75 × 75 µm2 regarding its application as an X-ray detector at synchrotrons sources or FELs. Sensor properties such as dark current, resistivity, noise performance, spectral resolution capability and charge transport properties were measured and compared with results from a previous batch of GaAs:Cr sensors which were produced from wafers obtained from a different supplier. The properties of the sample from the later batch of sensors from 2017 show a resistivity of 1.69 × 109 Ω/cm, which is 47% higher compared to the previous batch from 2016. Moreover, its noise performance is 14% lower with a value of (101.65 ± 0.04) e- ENC and the resolution of a monochromatic 60 keV photo peak is significantly improved by 38% to a FWHM of 4.3%. Likely, this is due to improvements in charge collection, lower noise, and more homogeneous effective pixel size. In a previous work, a hole lifetime of 1.4 ns for GaAs:Cr sensors was determined for the sensors of the 2016 sensor batch, explaining the so-called "crater effect" which describes the occurrence of negative signals in the pixels around a pixel with a photon hit due to the missing hole contribution to the overall signal causing an incomplete signal induction. In this publication, the "crater effect" is further elaborated by measuring GaAs:Cr sensors using the sensors from 2017. The hole lifetime of these sensors was 2.5 ns. A focused photon beam was used to illuminate well defined positions along the pixels in order to corroborate the findings from the previous work and to further characterize the consequences of the "crater effect" on the detector operation.

RESUMEN

PURPOSE: This study aims to analyse energy spectra formation in semiconductor X-ray pixel detectors using a simple experimental method. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The calculations were performed for the pixel detectors made of high-resistivity gallium arsenide compensated by chromium GaAs (Cr). A peculiar feature of these detectors is an extremely short lifetime of the holes. When using ordinary detectors with planar electrodes the spectra with high energy resolution could not be observed. In this study, the shape of amplitude spectra of gamma rays were calculated with energy W0 = 60 and 17 keV. The calculations were performed for the pixel detector of GaAs (Cr) with the thickness of d = 500µm and pixel pitch of 50µm. The mobility of electrons and holes were assumed to be µn = 3000 cm2/Vs, µp = 300 cm2/Vs, and the lifetimes were τn = 20 ns and τp = 1 ns, respectively. RESULTS: It was demonstrated that in the pixel detector, where there was practically no collection of holes and the amplitude spectra occurred with the energy resolution of 3.5 keV. CONCLUSION: The calculations show that energy spectra of the pixel detectors has a high energy resolution at an appropriate polarity applied bias voltage. The calculation results were conformed by the experimental data.

RESUMEN

High resistivity gallium arsenide is considered a suitable sensor material for spectroscopic X-ray imaging detectors. These sensors typically have thicknesses between a few hundred µm and 1 mm to ensure a high photon detection efficiency. However, for small pixel sizes down to several tens of µm, an effect called charge sharing reduces a detector's spectroscopic performance. The recently developed Medipix3RX readout chip overcomes this limitation by implementing a charge summing circuit, which allows the reconstruction of the full energy information of a photon interaction in a single pixel. In this work, we present the characterization of the first Medipix3RX detector assembly with a 500 µm thick high resistivity, chromium compensated gallium arsenide sensor. We analyze its properties and demonstrate the functionality of the charge summing mode by means of energy response functions recorded at a synchrotron. Furthermore, the imaging properties of the detector, in terms of its modulation transfer functions and signal-to-noise ratios, are investigated. After more than one decade of attempts to establish gallium arsenide as a sensor material for photon counting detectors, our results represent a breakthrough in obtaining detector-grade material. The sensor we introduce is therefore suitable for high resolution X-ray imaging applications.

Asunto(s)