Evaluation of Controlled-Drift Detectors in X-Ray Spectroscopic Imaging Applications

A detector that looks promising for advanced imaging modalities - such as X-ray absorption contrast imaging, X-ray fluorescence imaging and Diffraction-Enhanced imaging - is the Controlled Drift Detector (CDD). The CDD is a novel 2D X-ray imager with energy resolving capability of spectroscopic quality. It is built on a fully depleted silicon wafer and features fast readout while being operated at or near room temperature. The use of Controlled-Drift Detectors in the afore-mentioned applications allows translating these techniques from synchrotron-based experiments to laboratory-size experiments using polychromatic X-ray generators. We have built a dedicated and versatile detection module based on a 36 millimeter-squared CDD chip featuring pixels of 180x180 micrometer-squared and we evaluated the system performance in different x-ray imaging applications both with synchrotron-based experiments and in the laboratory environment.