Synchrotron light sources and radiation detector metrology

Synchrotron light sources are widely used in materials science, protein crystallography and biomicroscopy applications. They provide a unique stable source of high intensity photons, extending over a broad energy range from the far infrared to the γ-ray region. However, they have also proven invaluable for carrying out detailed metrology of radiation detectors by making available highly collimated and controllable monochromatized beams of synchrotron radiation. Light sources are only accessible at synchrotron research facilities and a number of specialized laboratories (for example, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), radiometry laboratories in Berlin, Germany) have been established specifically to be carry out photon metrology from the UV to the X-ray wavelengths using primary source standards in conjunction with primary detector standards. In this review, we discuss the use of synchrotron radiation for characterizing and calibrating X- and gamma-ray radiation detectors.