A 2D SMART PIXEL DETECTOR FOR TIME-RESOLVED PROTEIN CRYSTALLOGRAPHY

A smart pixel detector is being developed for Time Resolved Crystallog raphy for biological and material science applications. Using the Pixe l Detector presented here, the Laue method will. enable the study of t he evolution of structural changes that occur within the protein as a function of time. The x-ray pixellated detector is assembled to the in tegrated circuit through a bump bonding process. Within a pixel size o f 150x150 mu m(2), a low noise preamplifier-shaper, a discriminator, a 3 bit counter and the readout logic are integrated The read out, base d on the Column Architecture principle, will accept hit rates above 5x 10(8)/cm(2)/s with a maximum hit rate per pixel of 1MHz. This detector will allow time resolved Laue crystallography to be performed in a fr ameless operation mode, without dead time. Target specifications, arch itecture and preliminary results on the 8x8 front-end prototype and th e column readout are presented.