CCD camera as feasible large-area-size x-ray detector for x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging

As X-ray fluorescence radiation isotropically spreads from the sample, one of the most important requirements for spectrometers for many years has been a large solid angle. Charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras are quite promising options because they have a fairly large area size, usually larger than 150 mm². The present work has examined the feasibility of a commercially available camera with an ordinary CCD chip (1024 × 1024 pixels, the size of one pixel is 13 μm × 13 μm, designed for visible light) as an X-ray fluorescence detector. As X-ray photons create charges in the CCD chip, reading very quickly the amount is the key for this method. It is very simple if the charges always go into one pixel. As the charges quite often spread to several pixels, and sometimes can be lost, it is important to recover the information by filtering out the unsuccessful events. For this, a simple, versatile, and reliable scheme has been proposed. It has been demonstrated that the energy resolution of the present camera is 150 eV at Mn Kα, and also that its overall achievement in seeing minor elements is almost compatible with conventional X-ray fluorescence detectors. When the CCD camera is combined with a micro-pinhole collimator, full field X-ray fluorescence imaging with a spatial resolution of 20 μm becomes possible. Further feasibility in practical X-ray fluorescence analysis is discussed.