Characterisation of silicon strip detectors with a binary readout chip forX-ray imaging

In this paper we describe the development of a multichannel readout system for X-ray measurements using silicon strip detectors. The developed system is based on a binary readout architecture and optimised for detection of X- rays of energies in the range 6-30 keV. The critical component of the syste m is the 32-channel front-end chip, RX32N, which has been optimised for low noise performance, small channel to channel variation and high counting ra te operation. The performance of the chip is demonstrated by measurements o f complex X-ray spectra using silicon strip and pad detectors. The obtained results allow to use the system at room temperature with the detection thr eshold in the range from 500 to 10 000 electrons, which is enough in many c rystallographic and medical imaging applications. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.