Sydor Instruments, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: DTRA152-002

Description

The capabilities of modern x-ray light sources have opened up new areas in the study of the temporal evolution of complex materials under dynamic loading, which require detectors with high sensitivity, wide dynamic range at frame rates approaching the bunch repetition rates of modern light sources and detection at x-ray energies above 20keV.However, the capability to do such research is limited by the current detector technology. Sydor Instruments, in collaboration with Cornell University will advance the development of a fast framing hybridized x-ray imaging detector to fulfill these needs based on an existing detector platform developed by the Cornell Detector Group called the Keck PAD, which is proven capable of acquiring up to 12 successive x-ray images at frame rates of ~7MHz with single x-ray sensitivity and with a dynamic range exceeding 103x-rays/pixel/frame. The current Keck PAD capabilities will be extended to x-ray energies above 20keV by replacing its Silicon sensors with Cadmium Telluride sensors.The prototype detector performance will be characterized to demonstrate the feasibility of developing high energy x-ray detectors to meet detector needs for emerging applications in the study materials under dynamic loading. In parallel, other sensor material developments will be tracked to assess future potential.