Copper ridges nearly double X-ray sensor performance

摘要

A series of copper ridges nearly doubles the resolution of experimental X-ray sensors, enabling more precise identification of the X-ray "fingerprints" of different atoms, report researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colo. The sensors are expected to be powerful tools for semiconductor materials analysis, helping to differentiate between nanoscale contaminant particles on silicon wafers. The new design can measure X-ray energies with an uncertainty of only 2.4 electron volts, breaking through a longstanding 4.5 eV plateau in the performance of superconducting transition edge sensors (TES). The cryogenic sensors absorb individual X-rays and measure the energy based on the resulting rise in temperature.