Development of metallic magnetic calorimeters for x-ray metrology applications

摘要

We are developing metallic magnetic calorimeters operating at very low temperatures for applications in the field of ionizing radiation metrology. The main aim of this development is to enhance the accuracy of atomic and nuclear data determination, in particular x-ray and gamma ray emission probabilities. The energy resolution of metallic magnetic calorimeters is much better than that of the commonly used semiconductor detectors, enabling the separation of lines of very close energies. We have chosen gold, a high Z material, for the detector absorber. This favors photoelectric absorption, and the quantum efficiency can be made close to unity. We first describe the detection principle including the detector read-out system. Following, we present the conception, first prototypes and experimental results of two x-ray and gamma ray detectors for the energy ranges 1-20 keV and 20-200 keV. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.