A compact 7-cell Si-drift detector module for high-count rate X-ray spectroscopy

A new Si-drift detector module for fast X-ray spectroscopy experiments was developed and realized. The Peltier-cooled module comprises a sensor with 7 × 7-mm² active area, an integrated circuit for amplification, shaping and detection, storage, and derandomized readout of signal pulses in parallel, and amplifiers for line driving. The compactness and hexagonal shape of the module with a wrench size of 16mm allow very short distances to the specimen and multi-module arrangements. The power dissipation is 186mW. At a shaper peaking time of 190 ns and an integration time of 450 ns an electronic rms noise of ~11 electrons was achieved. When operated at 7 °C, FWHM line widths around 260 and 460 eV (Cu-K_α) were obtained at low rates and at sum-count rates of 1.7 MHz, respectively. The peak shift is below 1% for a broad range of count rates. At 1.7-MHz sum-count rate the throughput loss amounts to 30%.