AUTHOR=Goldschmidt Azriel , Grace Carl , Joseph John , Krieger Amanda , Tindall Craig , Denes Peter TITLE=VeryFastCCD: a high frame rate soft X-ray detector JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physics VOLUME=11 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2023.1285350 DOI=10.3389/fphy.2023.1285350 ISSN=2296-424X ABSTRACT=

Direct X-ray detection in silicon has been transformative for scattering experiments in biology and materials science. While bump-bonded hybrid pixels have been attractive for hard X-ray detection, the challenge for single photon soft X-ray detection is sufficiently low noise. CCD structures on thick, high-resistivity silicon have been successfully used as sensors over the range of soft to hard X-rays at storage rings and FELs. The VeryFastCCD is a high frame rate, column-parallel CCD sensor with 48 μm pixels. Combined with 256-channel custom readout ASICs, frame rates of 5–10 kHz have been achieved with readout noise as low as 20 e and full-well capacity >4 × 105 e/pixel. Thin (10 nm and 100 nm) entrance window contact processes have also been developed which provide >85% quantum efficiency for 285 eV X-rays. Systems are currently being developed for several beamlines at the upgraded Advanced Light Source.