Use of silicon drift detectors for the detection of medium-light elements in PIXE

In order to fully exploit in PIXE the superior performance of silicon drift detectors especially for the detection of low- and medium-energy X-rays, avoiding in particular the negative effects of backscattered particles, we developed a custom spectrometer based on a 10 mm2 chip with a thermoelectric Peltier cooler and home-designed front-end electronics, coupled to a weakly focusing polycapillary lens.This paper briefly describes the detector + lens assembly and reports the results of first tests carried out at an external beam line of the LABEC laboratory in Florence. Excellent energy resolution is achieved under real operating conditions in a PIXE run (measured FWHM at 1 keV is 81 eV with a count-rate of 480 cps) and also the lineshapes are very good (FW1/10M over FWHM ratio is 2.1). As a whole, our preliminary tests gave encouraging results and also helped to point out some aspects which it is worthwhile to investigate further (e.g. how X-ray peak intensity ratios may be affected by inaccurate lens alignment), in order to profit fully from such a good performance of the spectrometer.