X-ray spectroscopy with a multi-anode sawtooth silicon drift detector: the diffusion process

The position sensitive detection of low-energy X-rays can be realized by means of a multi-anode linear silicon drift detector (SDD). However, a severe worsening of the spectroscopic quality of the detector is observed due to the lateral broadening of the X-ray generated electron cloud during drift. Recently, we have proved experimentally that electron confinement can be achieved by means of sawtooth-shaped p+ strips; the sawtooth concept. This paper will present room temperature X-ray spectroscopy measurements clearly demonstrating the improvement of spectroscopic quality of the sawtooth SDD as compared with a traditional linear SDD. Using a sawtooth SDD we have measured an energy resolution of 1.4 keV FWHM at the 13.9 keV peak of 241Am at room temperature and a substantial reduction of the number of split events is also observed. The calculation of the influence of diffusion on the quality of the pulse height spectrum will also be given.