LPE GaAs as an X-ray detector for astronomy

T. J. Sumner*, S. M. Grant, D. Alexiev, K. S A Butcher

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Gallium arsenide detectors offer an attractive alternative to silicon for high energy X-ray (> 10 keV) astrophysics. Thick (130 μm) detectors fabricated from GaAs grown using the liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) process are now achieving an energy resolution which is approaching that needed in astrophysics. At the same time progress continues to be made in the field of true imaging optics at these high energies using multi-layer reflective surfaces and it is now not unreasonable to imagine a hard X-ray astrophysics mission with grazing incidence optics and a GaAs solid state position sensitive spectrometer in the focal plane. A brief introduction to hard X-ray astrophysics and optics is given. Results obtained with an LPE GaAs device are presented including both detector performance and the electrical characteristics. At room temperature a resolution of ∼ 2.8 keV HWHM was achieved.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)518-521
Number of pages4
JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors, and Associated Equipment
Volume348
Issue number2-3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 1994
Externally publishedYes

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