HERMES-Based X-ray Strip Detector

The effectiveness of synchrotron radiation science is being hindered by the limited availability of advanced detectors. The capability to produce photon fluxes has outpaced the ability to detect and measure the resultant photons. This is due to the limited deployment of existing detectors as well as very limited development effort to provide new advanced capabilities. As synchrotron radiation experiments become more sophisticated, advanced detectors exhibiting high count rates, high energy resolutions, and high spatial resolutions over large areas will be necessary to leverage the capabilities of the beamlines and enable discovery. A novel one-dimensional microstrip detector prototyped by Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) has proven to be highly effective at acquiring data with the count rates, energy resolution and spatial resolution needed for complex x-ray diffraction studies. In its present, limited coverage state, it provides a significant improvement in capability for a variety of time resolved low energy experiments. Sydor Instruments will collaborate with BNL to improve and commercialize the detector technology to satisfy the immediate needs at NSLS and the other synchrotron radiation facilities around the world. Furthermore, advancements will be investigated to evolve the technology into a much larger array detector that will enable new science by providing a means to measure a full-range diffraction pattern in times on the order of one millisecond. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: The commercial deployment of the current generation of this x-ray microstrip detector will enable researchers to advance their discovery in the very near term by providing a tool that significantly speeds up the data gathering process as compared to present techniques. By acquiring data simultaneously at many points, the quality and quantity of data will be improved 100-fold from the current state of the art equipment. These detectors as well as the future large array detectors built upon this framework will benefit a wide range of applications ranging from structure-based drug design to environmental remediation of contamination sites to new discoveries in nanoscale material science.