Experimental comparison of pixel detector arrays and CCD-based systems for X-ray area detection on synchrotron beamlines

We compared the detection characteristics of a pixel area X-ray detector, Medipix-2, with those of a CCD-based X-ray detector. The goal was to challenge the overall imaging performance of the emerging pixel area detection technique against that of a well-known detection device, in view of applications on synchrotron beamlines. A CCD-based detector was chosen as a the reference in reason of the intensive and widespread use of CCD systems on beamlines. In order to establish the comparison on an absolute side-by-side basis we built an optimized CCD-based system with same input pixel size as Medipix-2 and we characterized both systems in identical conditions. We will present the obtained results in particular the frequency-dependent noise and DQE, and the spatial response. We will also report on various test experiments with Medipix-2 in X-ray scattering and X-ray imaging using a synchrotron source. The Medipix-2 pixel array detector is developed in the framework of the Medipix collaboration managed by CERN, Geneva, Switzerland.