Edge effects in a small pixel CdTe for X-ray imaging

Large area detectors capable of operating with high detection efficiency at energies above 30 keV are required in many contemporary X-ray imaging applications. The properties of high Z compound semiconductors, such as CdTe, make them ideally suitable to these applications. The STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has developed a small pixel CdTe detector with 80×80 pixels on a 250 μm pitch. Historically, these detectors have included a 200 μm wide guard band around the pixelated anode to reduce the effect of defects in the crystal edge. The latest version of the detector ASIC is capable of four-side butting that allows the tiling of N×N flat panel arrays. To limit the dead space between modules to the width of one pixel, edgeless detector geometries have been developed where the active volume of the detector extends to the physical edge of the crystal. The spectroscopic performance of an edgeless CdTe detector bump bonded to the HEXITEC ASIC was tested with sealed radiation sources and compared with a monochromatic X-ray micro-beam mapping measurements made at the Diamond Light Source, U.K. The average energy resolution at 59.54 keV of bulk and edge pixels was 1.23 keV and 1.58 keV, respectively. 87% of the edge pixels present fully spectroscopic performance demonstrating that edgeless CdTe detectors are a promising technology for the production of large panel radiation detectors for X-ray imaging.