Evaluation of Kyoto’s event-driven X-ray astronomical SOI pixel sensor with a large imaging area

Hayashi, Hideki; Tsuru, Takeshi Go; Tanaka, Takaaki; Uchida, Hiroyuki; Matsumura, Hideaki; Tachibana, Katsuhiro; Harada, Sodai; Takeda, Ayaki; Mori, Koji; Nishioka, Yusuke; Takebayashi, Nobuaki; Yokoyama, Shoma; Fukuda, Kohei; Arai, Y.; Kurachi, Ikuo; Kawahito, Shoji; Kagawa, Keiichiro; Yasutomi, Keita; Shrestha, Sumeet; Nakanishi, Syunta; Kamehama, Hiroki; Kohmura, Takayoshi; Hagino, Kouichi; Negishi, Kousuke; Oono, Kenji; Yarita, Keigo

doi:10.1016/j.nima.2018.09.042

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…On the other hand, the gain of XRPIX6E is ∼ 2/3 of that for the SOIPIX-PDD [8], which is due to the difference in the design of the CSAs between the two devices. The measured pixel-to-pixel gain variations of 2.4% is comparable with those of the previous XRPIX devices: 3.3% for XRPIX2 and 1.8% for XRPIX5b [14,15]. Figure 5 shows the readout noise as a function of gain of XRPIX series, including XRPIX6E and SOIPIX-PDD.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

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Performance of the Silicon-On-Insulator pixel sensor for X-ray astronomy, XRPIX6E, equipped with pinned depleted diode structure

Harada

Tsuru

Tanaka

et al. 2019

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A:

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We have been developing event driven X-ray Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) pixel sensors, called "XRPIX", for the next generation of X-ray astronomy satellites. XRPIX is a monolithic active pixel sensor, fabricated using the SOI CMOS technology, and is equipped with the so-called "Event-Driven readout", which allows reading out only hit pixels by using the trigger circuit implemented in each pixel. The current version of XRPIX has lower spectral performance in the Event-Driven readout mode than in the Frame readout mode, which is due to the interference between the sensor layer and the circuit layer. The interference also lowers the gain. In order to suppress the interference, we developed a new device, "XRPIX6E" equipped with the Pinned Depleted Diode structure. A sufficiently highly-doped buried p-well is formed at the interface between the buried oxide layer and the sensor layer, and acts as a shield layer. XRPIX6E exhibits improved spectral performances both in the Event-Driven readout mode and in the Frame readout mode in comparison to previous devices. The energy resolutions in full width at half maximum at 6.4 keV are 236 ± 1 eV and 335 ± 4 eV in the Frame and Event-Driven readout modes, respectively. There are differences between the readout noise and the spectral performance in the two modes, which suggests that some mechanism still degrades the performance in the Event-Driven readout mode.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

“…Finally, we discuss the charge collection efficiency. A large low energy tail structure is observed in XRPIX5b [15]. XRPIX6E has a smaller low energy tail structure in the spectrum than shown by XRPIX5b.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Performance of the Silicon-On-Insulator pixel sensor for X-ray astronomy, XRPIX6E, equipped with pinned depleted diode structure

Harada

Tsuru

Tanaka

et al. 2019

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A:

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“…XRPIX5b [15] is the largest device in the XRPIX series that we have ever processed. A photograph of XRPIX5b is shown in Fig.…”

Section: Results From Large-sized Device Xrpix5bmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of SOI Pixel Sensors Developed for X-ray Astronomy

Tanaka

Tsuru

Uchida

et al. 2018

2018 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference Proceedings (NSS/MIC)

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We have been developing monolithic active pixel sensors for X-rays based on the silicon-on-insulator technology. Our device consists of a low-resistivity Si layer for readout CMOS electronics, a high-resistivity Si sensor layer, and a SiO2 layer between them. This configuration allows us both high-speed readout circuits and a thick (on the order of 100 µm) depletion layer in a monolithic device. Each pixel circuit contains a trigger output function, with which we can achieve a time resolution of 10 µs. One of our key development items is improvement of the energy resolution. We recently fabricated a device named XRPIX6E, to which we introduced a pinned depleted diode (PDD) structure. The structure reduces the capacitance coupling between the sensing area in the sensor layer and the pixel circuit, which degrades the spectral performance. With XRPIX6E, we achieve an energy resolution of ∼ 150 eV in full width at half maximum for 6.4-keV X-rays. In addition to the good energy resolution, a large imaging area is required for practical use. We developed and tested XRPIX5b, which has an imaging area size of 21.9 mm × 13.8 mm and is the largest device that we ever fabricated. We successfully obtain X-ray data from almost all the 608 × 384 pixels with high uniformity.

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“…Figure 3 shows a demonstration of a Cd-109 X-ray image obtained with XRPIX5b operated in the Event-Driven readout mode. 8 We placed the openwork of the clock tower of Kyoto University as the mask over the XRPIX5b, and applied a back bias voltage of 10 V at room temperature. The thickness of the depletion layer is estimated to be ∼ 130 µm.…”

Section: Imaging In the Event Driven Readout Modementioning

confidence: 99%

Kyoto's Event-Driven X-ray Astronomy SOI pixel sensor for the FORCE mission

Tsuru,

Hayashi,

Tachibana

et al. 2018

Preprint

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We have been developing monolithic active pixel sensors, X-ray Astronomy SOI pixel sensors, XRPIXs, based on a Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) CMOS technology as soft X-ray sensors for a future Japanese mission, FORCE (Focusing On Relativistic universe and Cosmic Evolution). The mission is characterized by broadband (1-80 keV) X-ray imaging spectroscopy with high angular resolution (< 15 arcsec), with which we can achieve about ten times higher sensitivity in comparison to the previous missions above 10 keV. Immediate readout of only those pixels hit by an X-ray is available by an event trigger output function implemented in each pixel with the time resolution higher than 10 µsec (Event-Driven readout mode). It allows us to do fast timing observation and also reduces non-X-ray background dominating at a high X-ray energy band above 5-10 keV by adopting an anti-coincidence technique. In this paper, we introduce our latest results from the developments of the XRPIXs. (1) We successfully developed a 3-side buttable back-side illumination device with an imaging area size of 21.9 mm×13.8 mm and an pixel size of 36 µm × 36 µm. The X-ray throughput with the device reaches higher than 0.57 kHz in the Event-Driven readout mode. (2) We developed a device using the double SOI structure and found that the structure improves the spectral performance in the Event-Driven readout mode by suppressing the capacitive coupling interference between the sensor and circuit layers. (3) We also developed a new device equipped with the Pinned Depleted Diode structure and confirmed that the structure reduces the dark current generated at the interface region between the sensor and the SiO 2 insulator layers. The device shows an energy resolution of 216 eV in FWHM at 6.4 keV in the Event-Driven readout mode.

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Evaluation of Kyoto’s event-driven X-ray astronomical SOI pixel sensor with a large imaging area

Cited by 8 publications

References 17 publications

Performance of the Silicon-On-Insulator pixel sensor for X-ray astronomy, XRPIX6E, equipped with pinned depleted diode structure

Performance of the Silicon-On-Insulator pixel sensor for X-ray astronomy, XRPIX6E, equipped with pinned depleted diode structure

Performance of SOI Pixel Sensors Developed for X-ray Astronomy

Kyoto's Event-Driven X-ray Astronomy SOI pixel sensor for the FORCE mission

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