Prototype Silicon Position-Sensitive Detector Working with Bragg-Brentano Powder Diffractometer

A prototype 64-channel detector module, comprising a silicon strip detector with strip pitch of 100μm and 64-channel ASIC RX64, was tested with the X-Pert Philips MPD diffractometer. Basic parameters of the detector module, energy resolution, and detection efficiency, were evaluated as a function of the counting rate. Energy resolution of 1.1 keV FWHM for photon rate up to 1×10$\text{}^{7}$ photon/s per 1 cm of the active width of the detector was demonstrated. The prototype detector, when applied in a diffractometer utilizing Bragg-Brentano focusing principle, allows to increase the counting rate by about 2 orders of magnitude with respect to a single counter. Exemplary diffraction patterns of polycrystalline samples of Si and SiO$\text{}_{2}$ (quartz peak cluster) are presented.