Development of a CdTe pixel detector with a window comparator ASIC for high energy X-ray applications

We have developed a photon-counting-type CdTe pixel detector (SP8-01). SP8-01 was designed as a prototype of a high-energy X-ray imaging detector for experiments using synchrotron radiation. SP8-01 has a CdTe sensor of 500μm thickness, which has an absorption efficiency of almost 100% up to 50 keV and 45% even at 100 keV. A full-custom application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) was designed as a readout circuit of SP8-01, which is equipped with a window-type discriminator. The upper discriminator realizes a low-background measurement, because X-ray beams from the monochromator contain higher-order components beside the fundamental X-rays in general. ASIC chips were fabricated with a TSMC 0.25μm CMOS process, and CdTe sensors were bump-bonded to the ASIC chips by a gold-stud bonding technique. Beam tests were performed at SPring-8. SP8-01 detected X-rays up to 120 keV. The capability of SP8-01 as an imaging detector for high-energy X-ray synchrotron radiation was evaluated with its performance characteristics.