Speaker
Description
The core of this contribution is the digital integration concept, a novel readout scheme for the front-end of 2D pixelated detectors. By using this concept, the XIDER project, an ongoing collaboration between the ESRF and Heidelberg University, aims at implementing a fast high dynamic range detector optimised for high energy scattering and diffraction applications at the upcoming generation of diffraction limited synchrotron radiation facilities.
The digital integration readout includes features found in both current photon-counting and charge-integrating devices and is particularly suitable for X-ray detectors that need to operate with very high photon flux, under strong pileup conditions, and have to provide high sensitivity with noise-free effective operation. One of the advantages of this concept relies on the ability of continuous cancellation of the dark current contributions even if they are not stable or fluctuate in time. This opens the possibility of building integrating detectors able to operate at high duty cycles, including continuous beam, with high-Z compound semiconductor sensors, a major challenge for future detectors for the upcoming synchrotron sources.
In the first phase of the XIDER project different implementations of the new readout scheme are being evaluated and compared. The first prototypes have been designed with CdTe sensors and readout electronics based on TSMC 65nm technology. The ongoing work is not only a proof of the new concept but also a necessary step towards the development of the full XIDER system, one of the main strategic instrumentation developments for EBS, the ESRF Extremely Brilliant Source. This new storage ring, currently under advanced construction, will be the first high-energy fourth-generation synchrotron facility worldwide. If exploited with high-performance and tailored instrumentation, the highly brilliant and coherent beams produced by ESRF-EBS will make possible new research opportunities in many different fields of research.
