Scintillating Imaging Proportional Counter as X-Ray to Light Image Converter

A xenon detector has been constructed which converts soft X-rays to UV photons while preserving the spatial position of the X-rays in two dimensions. More than 50 UV photons are collected in the image for each 5.9 keV X-ray. The spatial resolution of the present system is 0.5mm for integrated flux measurements and would probably be better for single photon counting. The detector can be made in a large area format without loss of resolution. In principle the system can image the very high X-ray fluxes which are required in certain applications with preservation of linearity in the image.