Direct detection in Transmission Electron Microscopy with a 5μm pitch CMOS pixel sensor

This paper presents the characterization of a CMOS monolithic pixel sensor prototype optimized for direct detection in Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). The sensor was manufactured in a deep-submicron commercial CMOS process and features pixels of 5μm pitch. Different pixel architectures have been implemented in the test chip, and the best performing architecture has been selected from a series of tests performed with 300 keV electrons. Irradiation tests to high electron doses have also been performed in order to estimate device lifetime.